Beyond algorethics : addressing the ethical and anthropological challenges of AI recommender systems

Machidon, Octavian-Mihai (author)

This paper examines the ethical and anthropological challenges posed by AI-driven recommender systems (RSs), which increasingly shape digital environments and social interactions. By curating personalized content, RSs do not merely reflect user preferences but actively construct experiences across social media, entertainment platforms, and e-commerce. Their influence raises concerns over privacy, autonomy, and mental well-being, while existing approaches such as “algorethics” – the effort to embed ethical principles into algorithmic design – remain insufficient. RSs inherently reduce human complexity to quantifiable profiles, exploit user vulnerabilities, and prioritize engagement over well-being. The paper advances a three-dimensional framework for human-centered RSs, integrating policies and regulation, interdisciplinary research, and education. These strategies are mutually reinforcing: research provides evidence for policy, policy enables safeguards and standards, and education equips users to engage critically. By connecting ethical reflection with governance and digital literacy, the paper argues that RSs can be reoriented to enhance autonomy and dignity rather than undermine them.

• Language: English
• Keywords: recommender systems, artificial intelligence, algorethics, digital ethics, user autonomy, human-centered approaches
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FRI - Faculty of Computer and Information Science
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: 13 str.
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-176037
• UDC: 004.8:17
• ISSN on article: 2373-6992
• DOI: 10.1080/23736992.2025.2584435
• COBISS.SI-ID: 256469251
• Publication date in RUL: 19.11.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Journal of media ethics
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
• ISSN: 2373-6992
• COBISS.SI-ID: 33771869

Licences

• License: CC BY-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
• Description: Under the NoDerivatives Creative Commons license one can take a work released under this license and re-distribute it, but it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: sistemi priporočanja, umetna inteligenca, algoretika, digitalna etika, avtonomija uporabnika, človeško središčeni pristopi