Delegated agency and moral responsibility in artificial intelligence

Introduction Artificial intelligence ethics is often framed as a response to unprecedented technical autonomy, with risks attributed to recent advances in machine learning and scale. This framing overlooks a recurring ethical structure: the delegation of moral authority to artificial agents. Ethical failures associated with AI are best understood as governance failures rooted in human design choices and accountability arrangements, even where opacity and limited control complicate responsibility attribution. Methods A qualitative, interdisciplinary approach integrates historical–thematic analysis, comparative interpretation of technological artifacts, and visual–conceptual synthesis. Mythological figures (Talos, the Golem, Pygmalion), early mechanical automata, and foundational computational systems are analyzed as conceptual models of delegated artificial agency rather than technological precursors. Results Across historical contexts, artificial agents exhibit consistent structural featu