In what follows, we outline seven ‘AI ethics traps’. In doing so, we hope to provide a resource for readers who want to understand and navigate the public debate on the ethics of AI better, who want to contribute to ongoing discussions in an informed and nuanced way, and who want to think critically and constructively about ethical considerations in science and technology more broadly. Of course, not everybody who contributes to the current debate on AI Ethics is guilty of endorsing any or all of these traps: the traps articulate extreme versions of a range of possible misconceptions, formulated in a deliberately strong way to highlight the ways in which one might prematurely dismiss ethical reasoning about AI as futile.
