Robot ethics

With the rapid advancement and deployment of robotics technology, experts as well as the
public are growing increasingly concerned with its ethical, legal, and societal (ELS) implications.
We posit that open and transparent stakeholder discussions about the technology
can not only inform development and revision of standards and regulations, but also help
develop a framework for advancing robot ethics. The Open Roboethics initiative (ORi),
described in this work, aims to be a dynamic online platform that connects various stakeholders
of robotics technology to advance roboethics discussion and foster informed robot
ethics design.
Using a robotic platform, PR2 (Willow Garage, CA), operating on the widely popular
and open-source Robot Operating System (ROS), we present a proof of concept of the ORi
idea by demonstrating one method in which stakeholder discussion of acceptable robot
behaviours can be implemented in a robotic platform.

This course explores the intersections of ethics, science, and technology. We will examine such questions as: How do we define technology? Is technology value-neutral or does it have values " built into " it? How does technology change human life for the better (and for the worse)? How should we balance competing values such as safety, efficiency, and freedom? Does technology ameliorate or exacerbate injustice and social inequality? How does technology encourage certain ways of viewing the world, and how does it corrupt our notions of " objectivity "? Is it a problem that STEM fields lack diversity, and, if so, what should we do to address that? Is technology going to eat all of our jobs, and what if it does?

The notion of trust has evolved to become one of the many nebulous buzzwords centering around AI. This paper aims at showing that, with regards to human influenceability through AI, trust in AI is to be seen as problematic. Based on the notion of socio-technical epistemic systems, I will argue that the trust human agents have in AI is strongly related to what could be understood as algorithmic authority. The second part of this paper will then translate the elaborated line of argument to the field of social robotics.

Several manufacturers have pledged to sell autonomous vehicles (AVs) within the next few years. These are cars that offload much of the task of driving from the human driver to a computer. Rudimentary autonomous features already exist in some cars: these include features that keep cars within their proper lane, avoid collisions by applying brakes, and regulate the distance between the car and the car in front of it (so-called " smart cruise control "). Fully autonomous vehicles, which may be technologically feasible in just a few years, would be capable of taking over completely from the human driver. However, as with the introduction of any technology that holds the promise to impact human life, we should be careful to scrutinize the moral dimensions of these products. We should also examine the assumptions their creators can make in the process of design. Unfortunately, some manufacturers still seem to misunderstand the moral dimensions of autonomous decision making in vehicles or are dubious that autonomous vehicles raise any difficult ethical problems.

Robot surgery began as a general practice in the
United States in 2000 when the robotic da Vinci Surgical
System was approved for use in hospitals by the FDA.
Recently there have been some questions regarding the
safety record of these machines and their benefits relative
to their expense. Should we as patients and caregivers place
more or less trust in the technology of robotic surgery? To
answer this question we will look at the possibility that
robotic surgery may be an example of reverse adaptation,
where the technology drives the social contract between
the doctor and patient. Additionally, we will look at the
impacts robotic surgery will have on traditional aspects of
the medical ethics of surgery, such as informed consent,
autonomy of surgeons and patients, corporate marketing,
and the duty to provide the best available care, as well as
increasing the asymmetry of the trust relationship between
surgeon and patient. It will be argued that these issues
will grow in importance as future robot surgery systems
gain more autonomy in making or suggesting surgical
strategies.

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), machines will make moral decisions and the major challenge of quantifying societal expectations about the ethical principles that should guide machine behavior. An often-used term in the field of machine ethics, as the consequences of machine behavior toward human users and other machines, is “Artificial Moral Agent” or AMA, to refer to a machine with ethics as part of its programming. However, to see whether this term is appropriate to use, it is important to identify what moral agents mean in the context of machine ethics and how ethical machines should be regarded.

This presentation was delivered at the First Annual Conference on the Governance of Emerging Technology organized by the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. The presentation makes a case for extending rights to artificial autonomous agents, AIs, and robots. It is based on research published in "The Machine Question: Critical Perspectives on AI, Robots, and Ethics" (MIT 2012).

Since the publication of the first volume on robot ethics in 2012, things have significantly changed. The trans-and interdisciplinary field of robot ethics became larger; more and more papers are being published, which are often scattered across very diverse academic journals. Most importantly, ethical issues concerning autonomous cars have gained public interest. This book deals successfully with both developments. It serves as a concentrated reflection and bundling of diverse discussions within the wide field of robot ethics. The editors are bringing autonomous cars and neglected ethical issues, at least in the first part of the book, more into focus. This collection of essays contains a wide range of questions and fruitfully shows that ethical issues and concerns within robotics are not just bound to questions of moral responsibility and legal liability. For example, the reader will encounter questions such as´how should we evaluate the possibility that increased automation will change human skills? ´ (pp. 80). Further questions regard the risks we face when we over-trust robots (pp. 129) or what kind of concerns will emerge with the increased Internet of Things (pp. 229). The volume also attends to more philosophical and less practical questions such as personal identity and AI (pp. 307) or how to test the moral status of artificial beings (pp. 293). The diversity of questions serves as an apt starting point for everyone interested in the field and does not require expert knowledge in ethics, law or robot engineering. The book is divided into four topical parts with a brief editorial introduction to each section. Each part contains six original articles. Part one is on Moral and Legal Responsibility, part two deals with Trust and Human-Robot Interactions and is followed by a further section concerned with Applications: From Love to War. The last part deals with AI and the Future of Robot Ethics. Because of the large number of chapters in this volume and to avoid a mere summary, the review will only discuss a small selection of the most interesting chapters.

For many, lethal autonomous weapons, or “killer robots,” are the stuff of nightmares. They have already been the subject of vigorous debate and copious scholarship (Adams 2001, Asaro 2012, Sparrow 2007, Wallach 2008). Some activists are already calling for a moratorium on the development of autonomous weapons, and others are calling for an outright ban. This article considers the strategic value of autonomous weapons and their current legal status. But the focus of this article is on the presumptive moral case in favor of killer robots and the torrent of criticisms that have been unleashed against them in recent years.

This book is dedicated to expert research topics, and analyses of ethics-related inquiry, at the machine ethics and morality level: key players, benefits, problems, policies, and strategies. Gathering some of the leading voices that recognize and understand the complexities and intricacies of human-machine ethics early on in this phenomenon provides a resourceful compendium to be accessed by decision-makers and theorists concerned with identification and adoption of human-machine ethics initiatives, leading to needed policy adoption and reform for human-machine entities, their technologies, and their societal and legal obligations. The book encompasses theory and practice sections for each topical component of important areas of human-machine ethics both in existence today, and prospective for the future. Yet, human-machine ethics is not a futuristic matter; it is ever-present, here and now – thanks largely to ongoing technological advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and synthetic biology, among other allied fields.

Investigations of the moral consequences of socialbots typically involve asking about the influence these mechanisms have on human users and the effect of this influence on the construction of human sociality. This chapter seeks to develop a more fundamental mode of moral inquiry that grapples with other questions—questions concerning who or what can or should be considered “Other” in social relationships and communicative exchange. Toward this end, the chapter investigates both sides of the ethical relationship—moral agency and moral patiency—in an effort to develop a more nuanced  understanding of the social challenges and opportunities of bots.

This paper addresses the issue of the ethical obligations of human beings towards the robots that will achieve the status of persons. In particular the text investigates the ethical status of designing such robot-persons as servants. The author disagrees with Steve Petersen – who claims that we can design robot-persons as servants without wronging them by implementing the desire to serve into them. Following Jürgen Habermas critique of positive liberal eugenics, the author argues that any kind of intentional designing inevitably wrongs the designed beings regarding their freedom, autonomy, equality and identity. Moreover, some unintended consequences of developing robot-person servants are discussed.

An elderly patient in a care home only wants human nurses to provide her care-not robots. If she selected her carers based on skin colour, it would be seen as racist and morally objectionable, but is choosing a human nurse instead of a robot also morally objectionable and speciesist? A plausible response is that it is not, because humans provide a better standard of care than robots do, making such a choice justifiable. In this paper, I show why this response is incorrect, because robots can theoretically care as well as human nurses can. I differentiate between practical caring and emotional caring, and I argue that robots can match the standard of practical care given by human nurses, and they can simulate emotional care. There is growing evidence that people respond positively to robotic creatures and carebots, and AI software is apt to emotionally support patients in spite of the machine's own lack of emotions. I make the case that the appearance of emotional care is sufficient, and need not be linked to emotional states within the robot. After all, human nurses undoubtedly 'fake' emotional care and compassion sometimes, yet their patients still feel adequately cared for. I show that it is a mistake to claim that 'the human touch' is in itself a contributor to a higher standard of care; 'the robotic touch' will suffice. Nevertheless, it is not speciesist to favour human nurses over carebots, because carebots do not (currently) suffer as the result of such a choice. The Robotic Touch 89 In the residential care home where Maude lives, there are some human nurses and some carebots. Maude only wants human nurses to provide her care. IF MAUDE ONLY WANTED white nurses to provide her care purely on the basis of their skin colour, we would claim she was being racist-so when she chooses a human nurse over a carebot purely on the basis of species membership 1 , why do we not claim she is being speciesist? Two plausible responses are: 1. Humans provide a better standard of care than robots do (making the choice of a human nurse over a carebot justifiable). 2. Robots do not have moral standing because they cannot suffer, and therefore there is nothing morally problematic about choosing a human over a robot. 2 I address the first of these responses and demonstrate that it is unfounded, because some robots are capable of providing a standard of care which is equal to or higher than that provided by human nurses. I further show that it is a mistake to claim that 'the human touch' is valuable simply because it comes from a human being.

In this article, I provide a sympathetic critique of a particular orientation or approach in machine ethics, namely, "Levinasian" machine ethics. I am sympathetic insofar as Levinasian machine ethics articulates what I call a "normativityfirst" approach to ethics and uses the particularly striking case of robots, or artificial agents, to illustrate it. However, the particular way in which Levinasians like David Gunkel articulate a normativity-first ethics is, I think, misguided. In order to be successful, such an ethics would need to be made more Levinasian, but doing so would lead to an ethical theory with undesirable consequences in the context of digital and surveillance capitalism. I will conclude by suggesting that the aims of Levinasian machine ethics might be better served by an ethics of design oriented toward transforming our shared forms of moral life.

This book argues that robots are enchanting humans (as potential intimate partners), because humans are enchanting robots (by performing magical thinking), and that these processes are a part of a significant re-enchantment of the “modern” world. As a foundation, the author examines arguments for and against intimate relationships with robots, particularly sex robots and care robots. Moreover, the book provides a consideration of human-robot interactions and philosophical reflections about robots through the lens of magic and magical thinking as well as theoretical and practical re-evaluations of their status and presence. Furthermore, the author discusses the abovementioned issues in the context of disenchantment and re-enchantment of the world, characterizing modernity as a coexistence of these two processes. The book closes with a consideration of future scenarios regarding the meaning of life in the age of rampant automation and the possibility that designing robots becomes a sort of new eugenics as a consequence of recognizing robots as persons.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-12579-0

This paper discusses the robotization of the workplace, and particularly the question of whether robots can be good colleagues. This might appear to be a strange question at first glance, but it is worth asking for two reasons. Firstly, some people already treat robots they work alongside as if the robots are valuable colleagues. It is worth reflecting on whether such people (e.g. soldiers giving “fallen” military robots military funerals and medals of honor) are making a mistake. Secondly, having good colleagues is widely regarded as a key aspect of what can make work meaningful. In discussing whether robots can be good colleagues, the paper compares that question to the more widely discussed questions of whether robots can be our friends or romantic partners. The paper argues that the ideal of being a good colleague has many different parts, and that on a behavioral level, robots can live up to many of the criteria typically associated with being a good colleague. Moreover, the paper also argues that in comparison with the more demanding ideals of being a good friend or a good romantic partner, it is comparatively easier for a robot to live up to the ideal of being a good colleague. The reason for this is that the “inner lives” of our friends and lovers are more important to us than the inner lives of our colleagues.

[this is the developed version of conference speech "Cain inanimate objects be more sexually attractive than people?" expanded with the hypothesis of return of magical thinking as an explanation of anthropomorphizing attitude towards robots]
This chapter elaborates on the issue of loving dolls and robots. The topic has been already broadly discussed by academics representing diverse disciplines as well as implemented into mass culture – mainly due to the fact that people who have strong affections towards inanimate objects are already a part of reality and cannot be perceived as a matter of distant future or a part of some science-fiction scenario anymore. On the one hand, the chapter delivers a claim that people who engage into intimate relationships with inanimate objects cannot be seen simply as crazy social outcasts, since their activity is a result of tendencies and processes that are prevalent in contemporary Western culture. In other words, the chapter argues that doll lovers and robot lovers are not following some other path than the rest of society – not only do they pursue in the same direction but they also might be simply few steps ahead. On the other hand, it is argued that further continuation of that journey involves some serious risks. In other words, the fact that we are all heading in this direction, does not mean that the direction is appropriate. The main risk is that the solipsist who create their own subjective worlds in search for personal freedom will tend to objectify other human beings and in the end they will find themselves imprisoned in a kind of autistic reality. Finally, the paper presents hypothesis that the mental processes that are connected with intimate relationships with inanimate objects are – in specific sense – connected with return of magical thinking typical for so called primitive cultures. The analyses refer not only to philosophical, psychological and sociological studies but also to popular culture, e.g. to a documentary movie Guys and Dolls and a specific episode of TV series House M.D.

Much thought has been given to the question of who bears moral and legal responsibility for actions performed by robots. Some argue that responsibility could be attributed to a robot if it possessed human-like autonomy and metavolitionality, and that while such capacities can potentially be possessed by a robot with a single spatially compact body, they cannot be possessed by a spatially disjunct, decentralized collective such as a robotic swarm or network. However, advances in ubiquitous robotics and distributed computing open the door to a new form of robotic entity that possesses a unitary intelligence, despite the fact that its cognitive processes are not confined within a single spatially compact, persistent, identifiable body. Such a “nonlocalizable” robot may possess a body whose myriad components interact with one another at a distance and which is continuously transforming as components join and leave the body. Here we develop an ontology for classifying such robots on the basis of their autonomy, volitionality, and localizability. Using this ontology, we explore the extent to which nonlocalizable robots—including those possessing cognitive abilities that match or exceed those of human beings—can be considered moral and legal actors that are responsible for their own actions.

The task of this essay is to respond to the question concerning robots and responsibility—to answer for the way that we understand, debate, and decide who or what is able to answer for decisions and actions undertaken by increasingly interactive, autonomous, and sociable mechanisms. The analysis proceeds through three steps or movements. 1) It begins by critically examining the instrumental theory of technology, which determines the way one typically deals with and responds to the question of responsibility when it involves technology. 2) It then considers three instances where recent innovations in robotics challenge this standard operating procedure by opening gaps in the usual way of assigning responsibility. The innovations considered in this section include: autonomous technology, machine learning, and social robots. 3) The essay concludes by evaluating the three different responses—instrumentalism 2.0, machine ethics, and hybrid responsibility—that have been made in face of these difficulties in an effort to map out the opportunities and challenges of and for responsible robotics.

This essay addresses the other side of the robot ethics debate, taking up and investigating the question “Can and should robots have rights?” The examination of this subject proceeds by way of three steps or movements. We begin by looking at and analyzing the form of the question itself. There is an important philosophical difference between the two modal verbs that organize the inquiry—can and should. This difference has considerable history behind it that influences what is asked about and how. Second, capitalizing on this verbal distinction, it is possible to identify four modalities concerning social robots and the question of rights. The second section will identify and critically assess these four modalities as they have been deployed and developed in the current literature. Finally, we will conclude by proposing another alternative, a way of thinking otherwise that effectively challenges the existing rules of the game and provides for other ways of theorizing moral standing that can scale to the unique challenges and opportunities that are confronted in the face of social robots.

In the context of the knowledge agenda automated driving (knowledgeagenda.connekt.nl/engels/),Rijkswaterstaat commissioned TU Delft to write a white paper on ethical issues in automated driving to provide a basis for discussion and some recommendations on how to take into account this subject when deploying automated vehicles.
In this paper I present, discuss, and offer some recommendations on some major ethical issues presented by the introduction on the public road of automated driving systems (ADS), aka self-driving cars. The recommended methodology is that of Responsible Innovation and Value-Sensitive Design. The concept of “meaningful human control” is introduced and proposed as a basis for a policy approach which prevents morally unacceptable risks for human safety, and anticipates issues of moral and legal responsibility for accidents. The importance of the individual rights to safety, access to mobility and privacy is highlighted too.

Amongst the many fields of law affected by genetics and robotics there is also crime prevention.
Genetics may be used in crime prevention basically in two ways: 1) to establish whether a person is genetically predisposed to crime or antisocial behaviours (that is, to assess his dangerousness); 2) to collect and retain DNA samples of individuals in special databases or banks in order to compare them with those found on the scenes of crimes, so to detect the authors of crimes. As for robotics, its employment in crime prevention is far more variegated than that of genetics, but it often passes unnoticed to the eyes of the lawyer, as it is still relegated to the field of mere praxis, lacking specific legal regulations. Robots are currently used by many Countries for the most disparate preventive purposes, such as a) surveillance, b) formation, education and information, c) police guarding and patrolling, d) using force against things and against persons.
The analysis of these possible uses of genetics and robotics in crime prevention shows how they may be employed as means of either positive or negative prevention, whereas positive prevention consists in the promotion and development of the prerogatives and personality of human person, while negative prevention consists in the compression of human personality, with its inherent rights and liberties.
Thus, genetics and robotics reflect once again the old question of the means of crime prevention. Against the insistent (almost obsessive) suggestions that the only way to «fight» a criminality that (especially in our global era) is getting more and more «exceptional» are negative measures, I insist in suggesting that positive measures are still the most efficient and legitimate way to prevent crime. The resources, technologies and products of globalisation – amongst which robotics and genetics – would be better invested in the development of instruments to support and enhance the personality of the human being, rather than in the multiplication of weapons and measures that compress, incapacitate, neutralise, eliminate this personality in an escalation of violence and (preventive) repression which ultimately is more criminogenic than preventive – especially on the global scale and over the long term.
However, since crime prevention is but a means of protection against the most harmful aggression to the most significant interests and goods of the human person, then the condition for its legitimacy is that crime prevention itself does not turn into result into an arbitrary violation of the human person itself. Therefore, the minimum threshold of legitimacy of any genetic and robotic measure of crime prevention shall be its compliance with the safeguard of fundamental individual rights and liberties typical the rule of law and protected by international human rights law.

This article offers an overview of the main first-order ethical questions raised by robots and Artificial Intelligence (RAIs) under five broad rubrics: functionality, inherent significance, rights and responsibilities, side-effects, and threats. The first letter of each rubric taken together conveniently generates the acronym FIRST. Special attention is given to the rubrics of functionality and inherent significance given the centrality of the former and the tendency to neglect the latter in virtue of its somewhat nebulous and contested character. In addition to exploring some illus- trative issues arising under each rubric, the article also emphasizes a number of more general themes. These include: the multiplicity of interacting levels on which ethical questions about RAIs arise, the need to recognise that RAIs potentially implicate the full gamut of human values (rather than exclusively or primarily some readily identifiable sub-set of ethical or legal principles), and the need for practically salient ethical reflection on RAIs to be informed by a realistic appreciation of their existing and foreseeable capacities.

There are many issues surrounding the introduction of social robots into society, including concerns about how they may be used to replace true social interaction in personal life, dehumanise formerly social occupations such as elderly care, and be perceived as more human than they actually are. This paper shall present a psychological perspective on the human reception of social robots and apply the gathered information to address these concerns.

Work in the field of machine medical ethics, especially as it applies to healthcare robots, generally focuses attention on controlling the decision making capabilities and actions of autonomous machines for the sake of respecting the rights of human beings. Absent from much of the current literature is a consideration of the other side of this issue. That is, the question of machine rights or the moral standing of these socially situated and interactive technologies. This paper investigates the moral situation of healthcare robots by examining how human beings should respond to these artificial entities that will increasingly come to care for us. A range of possible response s will be considered bounded by two opposing positions. We can, on the one hand, deal with these mechanisms by deploying the standard instrumental theory of technology, which renders care-giving robots nothing more than tools and therefore something we do not really need to care about. Or we can, on the other hand, treat these machines as domestic companions that occupy the place of another “person” in social relationships, becoming someone we increasingly need to care about. Unfortunately neither option is entirely satisfactory, and it is the objective of this paper not to argue for one or the other but to formulate the opportunities and challenges of ethics in the era of robotic caregivers.

Die Robotik und KI-Forschung stellt uns vor zahlreiche Herausforderungen. Eine davon besteht in der Transformation traditionell dem Menschen vorbehaltener Kompetenzen wie Autonomie, Handlungsfähigkeit und Verantwortung in ihrer Übertragung auf artifi-zielle Systeme. Um die Rolle und Funktion des Verantwortungskonzepts innerhalb der Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion und Roboterethik in den Blick nehmen zu können, defi-niere ich zunächst eine etymologische Minimaldefinition der Verantwortung und stelle ihre Relationselemente vor. In einem zweiten Schritt betrachte ich die beiden Arbeits-felder der Roboterethik, um zuletzt die Rolle der Verantwortung mit Blick auf artifizielle Systeme als moralische Handlungssubjekte und als Wertträger*innen zu veranschaulichen.

La technique est désormais omniprésente sur les théâtres d’opérations comme elle l’est dans le quotidien de chacun. Un premier constat essentiel s’impose : la course en avant de la technique, qu’elle soit considérée comme positive ou non, est irréversible. La question de savoir si les outils à notre disposition sont moraux ou immoraux est vaine ; en revanche, il est plus pertinent de s’interroger sur les conséquences à long terme de l’évolution et de l’emploi des techniques.

Science fiction narratives have not only influenced the way the majority of people imagine the future, but they have also shaped the general expectations for the technological development. This phenomenon has been called "science fiction prototyping" by Brian David Johnson. The prototype of a robot is created by science fiction works. Robots as artificially created entities are often presented as potential "members" of future society. Therefore, their legal status in imaginary reality is worth considering. The analysis of Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott and I, Robot (2004) by Alex Proyas juxtaposes features that, according to the legal tradition, are most often attributed to moral subjects of legal protection with human-like features of robots. The interdisciplinary approach adopted in this study involves applying legal reasoning to the study of science fiction.

This timely publication features thoroughly researched articles on the topics of artificial moral agency, cyber-warfare, transhumanism, organic neural nets, human worker replacement, automaticity and global governance, security and surveillance, military drones, and more.