Ontogenesis of Agency in Machines : A Multidisciplinary Review

How does agency arise in biocognitive systems? Can the emergence of agency be explained by physical laws? We review these and related questions in philosophy, psychology, biology, and physics. Based on the review we ask the questions: i) Can machines have agency? and, if so, ii) How can we build machines with agency? We examine existing work in artificial intelligence and machine learning on selfmotivated, self-teaching, and self-developing systems with respect to the ontogenesis (“coming into being”) of agency in computational systems. The impact of these “autogenic” systems or machine agency on science, technology, and humanity will be discussed.

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