Over the past two decades, ethical challenges related to robotics technologies have gained increasing interest among different research and non-academic communities, in particular through the field of roboethics. While the reasons to address roboethics are clear, why not to engage with ethics needs to be better understood. This paper focuses on a limited or lacking engagement with ethics that takes place within some parts of the robotics community and its implications for the conceptualisation of the human (...) being. The underlying assumption is that the term ‘ethical’ essentially means ‘human’. Thus, this paper discusses a working hypothesis according to which by avoiding to engage with roboethics, roboticists contribute to the tacit dehumanisation process emerging in and outside of robotics. An alternative approach includes ‘lived ethics’ which involves not only incorporating formal ethical approaches into the roboticists’ work but also ‘being’ ethical and actually engaging with ethical reflection and practice. (shrink)

This article summarizes the recommendations concerning robotics as issued by the Commission for the Ethics of Research in Information Sciences and Technologies (CERNA), the French advisory commission for the ethics of information and communication technology (ICT) research. Robotics has numerous applications in which its role can be overwhelming and may lead to unexpected consequences. In this rapidly evolving technological environment, CERNA does not set novel ethical standards but seeks to make ethical deliberation inseparable from scientific activity. (...) Additionally, it provides tools and guidance for researchers and research institutions. (shrink)

Social robotics are autonomous robots or Artificial Moral Agents (AMA), that will interact respect and embody human ethical values. However, the conceptual and practical problems of building such systems have not yet been resolved, playing a role of significant challenge for computational modeling. It seems that the lack of success in constructing robots, ceteris paribus, is due to the conceptual and algorithmic limitations of the current design of ethical robots. This paper proposes a new approach for developing ethical capacities (...) in robotic systems, one based on the concept of Aristotelian phronesis. Phronesis in principle reflexes closer human ethics than the ethical paradigms we employ today in ethical robotics. This paper describes the essential features of phronesis and proposes a high-level architecture for implementing phronetic principles in autonomous robots. Phronetic robotics is in its early stages of conceptualization, so many of the presented ideas are speculative and require further research.2. (shrink)

Ethics and robotics in the fourth industrial revolution The current industrial revolution, characterised by a pervasive spread of technologies and robotic systems, also brings with it an economic, social, cultural and anthropological revolution. Work spaces will be reshaped over time, giving rise to new challenges for human‒machine interaction. Robotics is hereby inserted in a working context in which robotic systems and cooperation with humans call into question the principles of human responsibility, distributive justice and dignity of work. (...) In particular, the responsibilities for using a robotic system in a surgical context will be discussed, along with possible problems of medium- or long-term technological unemployment to be tackled on the basis of shared concepts of distributive justice. Finally, the multiple dimensions of human dignity in the working context are dealt with in terms of dignity of work, dignity at work and dignity in human‒machine interaction. (shrink)

This paper deals with the birth of Roboethics. Roboethics is the ethics inspiring the design, development and employment of Intelligent Machines. Roboethics shares many 'sensitive areas' with Computer Ethics, Information Ethics and Bioethics. It investigates the social and ethical problems due to the effects of the Second and Third Industrial Revolutions in the Humans/Machines interaction's domain. Urged by the responsibilities involved in their professions, an increasing number of roboticists from all over the world have started - in (...) cross-cultural collaboration with scholars of Humanities - to thoroughly develop the Roboethics, the applied ethics that should inspire the design, manufacturing and use of robots. The result is the Roboethics Roadmap. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore artificial moral agency by reflecting upon the possibility of a Moral Turing Test and whether its lack of focus on interiority, i.e. its behaviouristic foundation, counts as an obstacle to establishing such a test to judge the performance of an Artificial Moral Agent. Subsequently, to investigate whether an MTT could serve as a useful framework for the understanding, designing and engineering of AMAs, we set out to address fundamental challenges within (...) the field of robot ethics regarding the formal representation of moral theories and standards. Here, typically three design approaches to AMAs are available: top-down theory-driven models and bottom-up approaches which set out to model moral behaviour by means of models for adaptive learning, such as neural networks, and finally, hybrid models, which involve components from both top-down and bottom-up approaches to the modelling of moral agency. With inspiration from Allen and Wallace as well as Prior, we elaborate on theoretically driven approaches to machine ethics by introducing deontic tense logic. Finally, within this framework, we explore the character of human interaction with a robot which has successfully passed an MTT. Design/methodology/approach – The ideas in this paper reflect preliminary theoretical considerations regarding the possibility of establishing a MTT based on the evaluation of moral behaviour, which focusses on moral reasoning regarding possible actions. The thoughts reflected fall within the field of normative ethics and apply deontic tense logic to discuss the possibilities and limitations of artificial moral agency. Findings – The authors stipulate a formalisation of logic of obligation, time and modality, which may serve as a candidate for implementing a system corresponding to an MTT in a restricted sense. Hence, the authors argue that to establish a present moral obligation, we need to be able to make a description of the actual situation and the relevant general moral rules. Such a description can never be complete, as the combination of exhaustive knowledge about both situations and rules would involve a God eye’s view, enabling one to know all there is to know and take everything relevant into consideration before making a perfect moral decision to act upon. Consequently, due to this frame problem, from an engineering point of view, we can only strive for designing a robot supposed to operate within a restricted domain and within a limited space-time region. Given such a setup, the robot has to be able to perform moral reasoning based on a formal description of the situation and any possible future developments. Although a system of this kind may be useful, it is clearly also limited to a particular context. It seems that it will always be possible to find special cases in which a given system does not pass the MTT. This calls for a new design of moral systems with trust-related components which will make it possible for the system to learn from experience. Originality/value – It is without doubt that in the near future we are going to be faced with advanced social robots with increasing autonomy, and our growing engagement with these robots calls for the exploration of ethical issues and stresses the importance of informing the process of engineering ethical robots. Our contribution can be seen as an early step in this direction. (shrink)

Background As health education robots may potentially become a significant support force in nursing practice in the future, it is imperative to adhere to the European Union’s concept of “Responsible Research and Innovation” (RRI) and deeply reflect on the ethical risks hidden in the process of intelligent robotic health education. Aim This study explores the perceptions of professional nursing professionals regarding the potential ethical risks associated with the clinical practice of intelligent robotic health education. Research design This study adopts a (...) descriptive phenomenological approach, employing Colaizzi’s seven-step method for data analysis. Participants and research context We conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 nursing professionals from tertiary comprehensive hospitals in China. Ethical considerations This study has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Jiangsu Provincial Second Chinese Medicine Hospital. Findings Nursing personnel, adhering to the principles of RRI and the concept of “person-centered” care, have critically reflected on the potential ethical risks inherent in robotic health education. This reflection has primarily identified six themes: (a) threats to human dignity, (b) concerns about patient safety, (c) apprehensions about privacy disclosure, (d) worries about implicit burdens, (e) concerns about responsibility attribution, and (f) expectations for social support. Conclusions This study focuses on health education robots, which are perceived to have minimal ethical risks, and provides rich and detailed insights into the ethical risks associated with robotic health education. Even seemingly safe health education robots elicit significant concerns among professionals regarding their safety and ethics in clinical practice. As we move forward, it is essential to remain attentive to the potential negative impacts of robots and actively address them. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence and robotics is pervasive in daily life and set to expand to new levels potentially replacing human decision-making and action. Self-driving cars, home and healthcare robots, and autonomous weapons are some examples. A distinction appears to be emerging between potentially benevolent civilian uses of the technology (eg unmanned aerial vehicles delivering medicines), and potentially malevolent military uses (eg lethal autonomous weapons killing human com- batants). Machine-mediated human interaction challenges the philosophical basis of human existence and ethical conduct. (...) Aside from technical challenges of ensuring ethical conduct in artificial intelligence and robotics, there are moral questions about the desirability of replacing human functions and the human mind with such technology. How will artificial intelligence and robotics engage in moral reasoning in order to act ethically? Is there a need for a new set of moral rules? What happens to human interaction when it is mediated by technology? Should such technology be used to end human life? Who bears responsibility for wrongdoing or harmful conduct by artificial intelligence and robotics? -/- Whilst Kant may be familiar to international lawyers for setting restraints on the use of force and rules for perpetual peace, his foundational work on ethics provides an inclusive moral philosophy for assessing ethical conduct of individuals and states and, thus, is relevant to discussions on the use and development of artificial intelligence and robotics. His philosophy is inclusive because it incorporates justifications for morals and legitimate responses to immoral conduct, and applies to all human agents irrespective of whether they are wrongdoers, unlawful combatants, or unjust enemies. Humans are at the centre of rational thinking, action, and norm-creation so that the rationale for restraints on methods and means of warfare, for example, is based on preserving human dignity as well as ensuring conditions for perpetual peace among states. Unlike utilitarian arguments which favour use of autonomous weapons on the basis of cost-benefit reasoning or the potential to save lives, Kantian ethics establish non-consequentialist and deontological rules which are good in themselves to follow and not dependent on expediency or achieving a greater public good. -/- Kantian ethics make two distinct contributions to the debate. First, they provide a human-centric ethical framework whereby human exist- ence and capacity are at the centre of a norm-creating moral philosophy guiding our understanding of moral conduct. Second, the ultimate aim of Kantian ethics is practical philosophy that is relevant and applicable to achieving moral conduct. -/- I will seek to address the moral questions outlined above by exploring how core elements of Kantian ethics relate to use of artificial intelli- gence and robotics in the civilian and military spheres. Section 2 sets out and examines core elements of Kantian ethics: the categorical imperative; autonomy of the will; rational beings and rational thinking capacity; and human dignity and humanity as an end in itself. Sections 3-7 consider how these core elements apply to artificial intelligence and robotics with discussion of fully autonomous and human-machine rule-generating approaches; types of moral reasoning; the difference be- tween ‘human will’ and ‘machine will’; and respecting human dignity. (shrink)

Ethics for Robots describes and defends a method for designing and evaluating ethics algorithms for autonomous machines, such as self-driving cars and search and rescue drones. Derek Leben argues that such algorithms should be evaluated by how effectively they accomplish the problem of cooperation among self-interested organisms, and therefore, rather than simulating the psychological systems that have evolved to solve this problem, engineers should be tackling the problem itself, taking relevant lessons from our moral psychology. Leben draws on (...) the moral theory of John Rawls, arguing that normative moral theories are attempts to develop optimal solutions to the problem of cooperation. He claims that Rawlsian Contractarianism leads to the 'Maximin' principle - the action that maximizes the minimum value - and that the Maximin principle is the most effective solution to the problem of cooperation. He contrasts the Maximin principle with other principles and shows how they can often produce non-cooperative results. Using real-world examples - such as an autonomous vehicle facing a situation where every action results in harm, home care machines, and autonomous weapons systems - Leben contrasts Rawlsian algorithms with alternatives derived from utilitarianism and natural rights libertarianism. Including chapter summaries and a glossary of technical terms, Ethics for Robots is essential reading for philosophers, engineers, computer scientists, and cognitive scientists working on the problem of ethics for autonomous systems. (shrink)

Social categorizations regarding gender or age have proven to be relevant in human-robot interaction. Their stereotypical application in the development and implementation of robotics in eldercare is even discussed as a strategy to enhance the acceptance, well-being, and quality of life of older people. This raises serious ethical concerns, e.g., regarding autonomy of and discrimination against users. In this paper, we examine how relevant professional stakeholders perceive and evaluate the use of social categorizations and stereotypes regarding gender and age (...) in robotics for eldercare. Based on 16 semi-structured interviews with representatives from technology development, industry, and nursing science as well as practice, we explore the subjects’ awareness, evaluations, and lines of argument regarding the corresponding moral challenges. Six different approaches of dealing with categorizations and stereotypes regarding gender and age in care robotics for older people are identified: negation, functionalistic relativization, explanation, neutralization, stereotyping, and queering. We discuss the ethical implications of these approaches with regard to professional responsibility and draw conclusions for responsible age tech in pluralistic societies. (shrink)

With robots increasingly integrated into various areas of life, the question of relationships with them is gaining prominence. Are friendship and partnership with robots possible? While there is already extensive research on relationships with robots, this article critically examines whether the relationship with non-human entities is sufficiently explored on a deeper level, especially in terms of ethical concepts such as autonomy, agency, and responsibility. In robot ethics, ethical concepts and considerations often presuppose properties such as consciousness, sentience, and intelligence, (...) which are exclusively aligned with humans. I will challenge the understanding of these properties by anchoring them in contexts, bodies, and actions. This approach allows to consider the specific ways of being of various human and non-human entities and to identify these properties in non-human entities as well. My “eco-relational” approach posits that it is crucial to consider the relationality with non-human entities such as animals and technology in central ethical concepts from the beginning. This approach reflects the “eco”, the entire house in which we live including animals and robots. To support this, I examine two dominant approaches in robot ethics within the contemporary Western tradition: the “properties approach” and modestly relational approaches. I will develop an eco-relational approach as an alternative. Employing a phenomenological method, I will demonstrate through various examples that our properties and actions are inherently connected with non-human entities. I will show that robots play a central role in our properties and actions, leading to concepts such as hybrid actions and non-human agency. It becomes clear that technology and our relationships with it disrupt traditional ethical concepts. (shrink)

The use of robots in therapy for children with autism spectrum disorder raises issues concerning the ethical and social acceptability of this technology and, more generally, about human–robot interaction. However, usually philosophical papers on the ethics of human–robot-interaction do not take into account stakeholders’ views; yet it is important to involve stakeholders in order to render the research responsive to concerns within the autism and autism therapy community. To support responsible research and innovation in this field, this paper identifies (...) a range of ethical, social and therapeutic concerns, and presents and discusses the results of an exploratory survey that investigated these issues and explored stakeholders’ expectations about this kind of therapy. We conclude that although in general stakeholders approve of using robots in therapy for children with ASD, it is wise to avoid replacing therapists by robots and to develop and use robots that have what we call supervised autonomy. This is likely to create more trust among stakeholders and improve the quality of the therapy. Moreover, our research suggests that issues concerning the appearance of the robot need to be adequately dealt with by the researchers and therapists. For instance, our survey suggests that zoomorphic robots may be less problematic than robots that look too much like humans. (shrink)

Emerging technologies like robotics for war and peace stress our moral norms and generate much public interest and controversy. We use this interest to attract participants to an innovative on-line survey platform, designed for experimenting with public engagement in the ethics of technology. In particular, the N-Reasons platform addresses several issues in democratic ethics: the cost of public participation, the methodological issue of feasible reflective ethical equilibrium (how can individuals in a large group, take into account the (...) ethical views of all others?), and the reliability of public participation processes. We sketch the motivation and design of the N-Reasons platform, stressing the need for a practical (fast, low-cost) instrument that makes equilibrium feasible. We focus on the Robot Ethics Survey that featured a set of nine ethical challenges raised by robotics for war and peace. Over 400 people in five disjoint groups participated in this on-line survey experiment. We analyze the results, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the participants’ decisions taken and the reasons supporting these decisions. Both decisions and reasons strongly distinguished lethal military robotics from peace-related robotics. Methodologically, both decisions and reasons over five distinct groups were remarkably consistent. (shrink)

The growing proportion of elderly people in society, together with recent advances in robotics, makes the use of robots in elder care increasingly likely. We outline developments in the areas of robot applications for assisting the elderly and their carers, for monitoring their health and safety, and for providing them with companionship. Despite the possible benefits, we raise and discuss six main ethical concerns associated with: (1) the potential reduction in the amount of human contact; (2) an increase in (...) the feelings of objectification and loss of control; (3) a loss of privacy; (4) a loss of personal liberty; (5) deception and infantilisation; (6) the circumstances in which elderly people should be allowed to control robots. We conclude by balancing the care benefits against the ethical costs. If introduced with foresight and careful guidelines, robots and robotic technology could improve the lives of the elderly, reducing their dependence, and creating more opportunities for social interaction. (shrink)

For implementing ethics in AI technology, there are at least two major ethical challenges. First, there are various competing AI ethics guidelines and consequently there is a need for a systematic overview of the relevant values that should be considered. Second, if the relevant values have been identified, there is a need for an indicator system that helps assessing if certain design features are positively or negatively affecting their implementation. This indicator system will vary with regard to specific (...) forms of AI technology. An adequate indicator system for the ethical development of recommendation algorithms, for example, will diverge considerably from another for autonomous road vehicles, although both are based on shared values. In this contribution, we propose solutions to both challenges with regard to the special case of the development of an AI-assisted rescue robot. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine a variety of agents that appear in Kantian ethics in order to determine which would be necessary to make a robot a genuine moral agent. However, building such an agent would require that we structure into a robot’s behavioral repertoire the possibility for immoral behavior, for only then can the moral law, according to Kant, manifest itself as an ought, a prerequisite for being able to hold an agent morally accountable for its actions. Since (...) building a moral robot requires the possibility of immoral behavior, I go on to argue that we cannot morally want robots to be genuine moral agents, but only beings that simulate moral behavior. But then, if that is what we want for robots, why should we want something different for human beings? Robot ethics, it seems, presents something of a reductio of Kant’s ethics that points to hidden assumptions that hide in the very fabric of the Kantian moral enterprise, not the least of which is that Kant presumes humans to be fallen creatures. Religious doctrine, in other words, infects Kant’s attempt to derive morality from reason. This paper will demonstrate that this is so. (shrink)

Robot ethics encompasses ethical questions about how humans should design, deploy, and treat robots; machine morality encompasses questions about what moral capacities a robot should have and how these capacities could be computationally implemented. Publications on both of these topics have doubled twice in the past 10 years but have often remained separate from one another. In an attempt to better integrate the two, I offer a framework for what a morally competent robot would look like and discuss a (...) number of ethical questions about the design, use, and treatment of such moral robots in society. Instead of searching for a fixed set of criteria of a robot’s moral competence I identify the multiple elements that make up human moral competence and probe the possibility of designing robots that have one or more of these human elements, which include: moral vocabulary; a system of norms; moral cognition and affect; moral decision making and action; moral communication. Juxtaposing empirical research, philosophical debates, and computational challenges, this article adopts an optimistic perspective: if robotic design truly commits to building morally competent robots, then those robots could be trustworthy and productive partners, caretakers, educators, and members of the human community. Moral competence does not resolve all ethical concerns over robots in society, but it may be a prerequisite to resolve at least some of them. (shrink)

If a robot sends a deceptive signal to a human user, is this always and everywhere an unethical act, or might it sometimes be ethically desirable? Building upon previous work in robot ethics, this article tries to clarify and refine our understanding of the ethics of robotic deception. It does so by making three arguments. First, it argues that we need to distinguish between three main forms of robotic deception (external state deception; superficial state deception; and hidden state (...) deception) in order to think clearly about its ethics. Second, it argues that the second type of deception – superficial state deception – is not best thought of as a form of deception, even though it is frequently criticised as such. And third, it argues that the third type of deception is best understood as a form of betrayal because doing so captures the unique ethical harm to which it gives rise, and justifies special ethical protections against its use. (shrink)

This Commentary offers a critique of an eco-relational approach in robot ethics, highlighting the importance of articulating an ecologically-sensitive ethical orientation that incorporates the entire more-than-human world, including technological entities like forms of artificial intelligence. While the eco-relational approach enhances our understanding of the complex way in which morally significant properties operate on a phenomenological level, it is not without its flaws. In particular, this perspective focuses on ethical concepts when it needs to be rooted in ethical systems, misrepresents (...) the extant literature on relational approaches to moral status, and is insufficiently ecological in a way that would bring machines into the moral universe by way of their location in and importance to the larger environment. At a time when the legal status of robots is being decided before moral questions are settled, it remains important to get the contours of relevant debates right so that the robot ethics discourse brings us closer to developing practical solutions for ethical dilemmas emerging in our increasingly technological age. (shrink)

Artificially Intelligent robotic technologies increasingly reflect a language of interaction and relationship and this vocabulary is part and parcel of the meanings now attached to machines. No longer are they inert, but interconnected, responsive and engaging. As machines become more sophisticated, they are predicted to be a “direct object” of an interaction for a human, but what kinds of human would that give rise to? Before robots, animals played the role of the relational other, what can stories of feral children (...) tell us about what it means to be human? What of ‘relationship’ do AI and robotic scientists draw on to generate ideas about their relational others? I will address these questions by reference to the work of Martin Buber in I and Thou. (shrink)

Assume we could someday create artificial creatures with intelligence comparable to our own. Could it be ethical use them as unpaid labor? There is very little philosophical literature on this topic, but the consensus so far has been that such robot servitude would merely be a new form of slavery. Against this consensus I defend the permissibility of robot servitude, and in particular the controversial case of designing robots so that they want to serve human ends. A typical objection to (...) this case draws an analogy to the genetic engineering of humans: if designing eager robot servants is permissible, it should also be permissible to design eager human servants. Few ethical views can easily explain even the wrongness of such human engineering, however, and those few explanations that are available break the analogy with engineering robots. The case turns out to be illustrative of profound problems in the field of population ethics. (shrink)

This is the fifth book by Professor Alan E Singer on business ethics and strategy. This book emphasizes aspects that are thought to be most likely to rise to prominence in the years to come. These include ecological-understandings at the conceptual level and the participation at the practical level in a distributed system of global governance system that strives to uphold all of the human goods, including the positive and negative freedoms, but in a reasonably balanced way. In a (...) section on justice and politics, several issues related to social and environmental justice are duly viewed from both a theoretical perspective and from a corporate (strategic) perspective. A further section focuses upon the governance and ethical implications of what James Martin (founder of the 21st Century School at the University of Oxford) has called the technologies of sorcery: synthetic biology, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial general intelligence. The final section of the book applies a stable organizing framework to the teaching of ethics in business and politics. This book will be of interest to students and practitioners across a wide spectrum of academic subjects and professions. (shrink)

Recent advancements in AI have prompted a large number of AI ethics guidelines published by governments and nonprofits. While many of these papers propose concrete or seemingly applicable ideas, few philosophically sound proposals are made. In particular, we observe that the line of questioning has often not been examined critically and underlying conceptual problems not always dealt with at the root. In this paper, we investigate the nature of ethical AI systems and what their moral status might be by (...) first turning to the notions of moral agency and patience. We find that their explication would come at a too high cost which is why we, second, articulate a different approach that avoids vague and ambiguous concepts or the problem of other minds. Third, we explore the impact of our philosophical and conceptual analysis on the regulatory landscape, make this link explicit, and finally propose a set of promising policy steps. (shrink)

Steven Spielberg’s AI – Artificial Intelligence, and Alex Proyas’s neo-noir, I, Robot, may both be understood as attempts to answer the question: ‘What conditions doesartificial intelligence research have to satisfy before it can justly claim to have producedsomething which truly simulates a human being?’1I would like to show that, farfrom construing this question simply in terms of intelligence, the films in questiondemonstrate that far more than this is at stake, and each articulates the ‘more’ in different,but related, terms. Moreover, contrary (...) to what viewers may suspect, neither film claimsthat the achievement of this goal is actualisable; rather, it posits a goal for artificialintelligence research by which it could measure its progress.2. (shrink)

In this chapter, we examine the key moral issues for the intelligence community with regard to the use of robots for intelligence collection. First, we survey the diverse range of spy robots that currently exist or are emerging, and examine their value for national security. This includes describing a number of plausible scenarios in which they have been (or could be) used, including: surveillance, attack, sentry, information collection, delivery, extraction, detention, interrogation and as Trojan horses. Second, we examine several areas (...) in which spy robots present serious ethical and legal challenges. We conclude by examining some moral concerns with shifting from intelligence collection to action, as enabled by robotics technology. (shrink)

In this article we tackle the core question of machine emotion research – “Can machines have emotions?” – in the context of “social robots”, a new class of machines designed to function as “social partners” for humans. Our aim, however, is not to provide an answer to the question “Can robots have emotions?” Rather we argue that the “robotics of emotion” moves us to reformulate it into a different one – “Can robots affectively coordinate with humans?” Developing a series (...) of arguments relevant to theory of emotion, philosophy of AI, and the epistemology of synthetic models, we argue that the answer to this different question is positive, and that it lays grounds for an innovative ethical approach to emotional robots. This ethical project, which we introduced elsewhere as “synthetic ethics”, rejects the diffused ethical condemnation of emotional robots as “cheating” technology. Synthetic ethics focuses not on an ideological refusal, but on the concrete sustainability of the emerging mixed human-robot social ecologies. On this basis, in contrast to a purely negative ethical approach to social robotics it promotes an analytical case by case ethical inquiry into the type of human flourishing that can result from human-robot affective coordination. (shrink)

Ex-Machina and Morgan, two recent science-fiction films that deal with the creation of humanoids, also explored the relationship between artificial intelligence, spatiality and the lingering question mark regarding artificial consciousness. In both narratives, the creators of the humanoids have tried to mimic human consciousness as closely as possible, which has resulted in the imprisonment of the humanoids due to proprietary concerns in Ex-Machina and due to the violent behavior of the humanoid in Morgan. This article addresses the dilemma of whether (...) or not the humanoids in both films possess high levels of artificial consciousness and its possible consequences regarding focalization, a narrative term that presupposes subjectivity, as well as offer two new categories of posthuman focalization—X-focalization and A-focalization. The issue of captivity also has far-reaching ethical implications when considering the underlying assumption of artificial consciousness—if humanoids are indeed endowed with a subjective inner life, then they are entitled to be treated as moral agents, equivalent to humans rather than animals. (shrink)

Different embodiments of technology permeate all layers of public and private domains in society. In the public domain of aged care, attention is increasingly focused on the use of socially assistive robots (SARs) supporting caregivers and older adults to guarantee that older adults receive care. The introduction of SARs in aged-care contexts is joint by intensive empirical and philosophical research. Although these efforts merit praise, current empirical and philosophical research are still too far separated. Strengthening the connection between these two (...) fields is crucial to have a full understanding of the ethical impact of these technological artefacts. To bridge this gap, we propose a philosophical-ethical framework for SAR use, one that is grounded in the dialogue between empirical-ethical knowledge about and philosophical-ethical reflection on SAR use. We highlight the importance of considering the intuitions of older adults and their caregivers in this framework. Grounding philosophical-ethical reflection in these intuitions opens the ethics of SAR use in aged care to its own socio-historical contextualisation. Referring to the work of Margaret Urban Walker, Joan Tronto and Andrew Feenberg, it is argued that this socio-historical contextualisation of the ethics of SAR use already has strong philosophical underpinnings. Moreover, this contextualisation enables us to formulate a rudimentary decision-making process about SAR use in aged care which rests on three pillars: (1) stakeholders’ intuitions about SAR use as sources of knowledge; (2) interpretative dialogues as democratic spaces to discuss the ethics of SAR use; (3) the concretisation of ethics in SAR use. (shrink)

As technology continues to grow (and sex-robots gain a more prominent position in our society), so too does concern about the way they will impact our lives and our sexuality. While many ethicists have started to assess what this impact could be (and if it would be positive or negative), the challenges and opportunities presented by sex-robots span over a wide range of topics and cannot be assessed easily. Hence, in this paper, I will attempt to categorize the main questions (...) concerning the ethics of sexual robotics in order to help ethicists gather their thoughts on this new technology. While doing so, I will principally identify four overarching issues: (1) how robots’ representation of human sexuality affects human gender issues; (2) how robots could potentially be utilized for medical purposes; (3) if robots could possibly deceive their users; (4) if sex-robots could end up as a new form of sex-slaves. (shrink)

Technological developments involving robotics and artificial intelligence devices are being employed evermore in elderly care and the healthcare sector more generally, raising ethical issues and practical questions warranting closer considerations of what we mean by “care” and, subsequently, how to design such software coherently with the chosen definition. This paper starts by critically examining the existing approaches to the ethical design of care robots provided by Aimee van Wynsberghe, who relies on the work on the ethics of care (...) by Joan Tronto. In doing so, it suggests an alternative to their non-principled approach, an alternative suited to tackling some of the issues raised by Tronto and van Wynsberghe, while allowing for the inclusion of two orientative principles. Our proposal centres on the principles of autonomy and vulnerability, whose joint adoption we deem able to constitute an original revision of a bottom-up approach in care ethics. Conclusively, the ethical framework introduced here integrates more traditional approaches in care ethics in view of enhancing the debate regarding the ethical design of care robots under a new lens. (shrink)

It is a common view that artificial systems could play an important role in dealing with the shortage of caregivers due to demographic change. One argument to show that this is also in the interest of care-dependent persons is that artificial systems might significantly enhance user autonomy since they might stay longer in their homes. This argument presupposes that the artificial systems in question do not require permanent supervision and control by human caregivers. For this reason, they need the capacity (...) for some degree of moral decision-making and agency to cope with morally relevant situations (artificial morality). Machine ethics provides the theoretical and ethical framework for artificial morality. This article scrutinizes the question how artificial moral agents that enhance user autonomy could look like. It discusses, in particular, the suggestion that they should be designed as moral avatars of their users to enhance user autonomy in a substantial sense. (shrink)

At a product demonstration conference in Chicago a few years ago, Taser introduced its latest technological achievement: a remote-controlled robot, developed by the iRobot company of Japan, armed with a Taser. Such a device could save lives on both sides of the law. But it is not the only use of robots replacing humans in dangerous jobs of security and defense. Recently we have seen the first robot soldiers, armed with lethal weapons, entering the battlefield as the US military begins (...) to deploy remote-controlled machinegun- armed robots to patrol dangerous neighborhoods in occupied Iraq. (shrink)

In “Robots, Trust and War” Simpson claims that victory in counter-insurgency conflicts requires that military forces and their governing body win the ‘hearts and minds’ of civilians. Consequently, forces made up primarily of autonomous robots would be ineffective in these conflicts for two reasons. Firstly, because civilians cannot rationally trust them because they cannot act from a motive based on good character. If they ever did develop this capacity then the purpose of sending them to war in our stead would (...) be lost because there would be no moral saving. Secondly, because if robot forces did offer a moral saving then this would signal that the deploying government could not be trusted to be committed to the conflict. I disagree with both claims. I argue firstly that there are less demanding grounds that could allow robot forces to be trusted sufficiently to be effective whilst still achieving a moral saving over the deployment of human ones. Secondly, that this moral saving would not necessarily signal that the deploying body lacked commitment because its interpretation would be highly context-dependent. I conclude therefore, contra-Simpson, that robot forces could plausibly be effective in counter-insurgency engagements in the foreseeable future. I suggest therefore that there may be a case for developing a more finely grained understanding of the opportunities for, and challenges of, their use. (shrink)

The debate about the use of robots in the care of older adults has often been dominated by either overly optimistic visions (coming particularly from Japan), in which robots are seamlessly incorporated into society thereby enhancing quality of life for everyone; or by extremely pessimistic scenarios that paint such a future as horrifying. We reject this dichotomy and argue for a more differentiated ethical evaluation of the possibilities and risks involved with the use of social robots. In a critical discussion (...) surrounding the capabilities approach to the ethical evaluation of quality of life, we develop an ethical framework that is more appropriate to the situation of the oldest old. We urge employment of a context-dependent approach to the ethical evaluation of new technologies in the care and therapy of older adults, and using the example of the robotic seal Paro, we show how this can be accomplished in a sensible and practical way. (shrink)

A major approach to the ethics of artificial intelligence is to use social choice, in which the AI is designed to act according to the aggregate views of society. This is found in the AI ethics of “coherent extrapolated volition” and “bottom–up ethics”. This paper shows that the normative basis of AI social choice ethics is weak due to the fact that there is no one single aggregate ethical view of society. Instead, the design of social (...) choice AI faces three sets of decisions: standing, concerning whose ethics views are included; measurement, concerning how their views are identified; and aggregation, concerning how individual views are combined to a single view that will guide AI behavior. These decisions must be made up front in the initial AI design—designers cannot “let the AI figure it out”. Each set of decisions poses difficult ethical dilemmas with major consequences for AI behavior, with some decision options yielding pathological or even catastrophic results. Furthermore, non-social choice ethics face similar issues, such as whether to count future generations or the AI itself. These issues can be more important than the question of whether or not to use social choice ethics. Attention should focus on these issues, not on social choice. (shrink)

There are two dominant trends in the humanitarian care of 2019: the ‘technologizing of care’ and the centrality of the humanitarian principles. The concern, however, is that these two trends may conflict with one another. Faced with the growing use of drones in the humanitarian space there is need for ethical reflection to understand if this technology undermines humanitarian care. In the humanitarian space, few agree over the value of drone deployment; one school of thought believes drones can provide a (...) utility serving those in need while another believes the large scale deployment of drones will exacerbate the already prevalent issues facing humanitarian aid providers. We suggest in this paper that the strength of the humanitarian principles approach to answer questions of aid provision can be complimented by a technology-facing approach, namely that of robot ethics. We have shown that for humanitarian actors we ought to be concerned with the risks of a loss of contextualization and de-skilling. For the beneficiary, we raise three concerns associated with the threat to the principle of humanity for this group: a loss of dignity by reducing human-to-human interactions; a threat to dignity through a lack of informational transparency; and, a threat to dignity by failing to account for the physiological and behavioral impacts of the drone on human actors. Although we acknowledge the obstacles associated with understanding the physiological and behavioral impacts we insist that the moral acceptability and desirability of drones in humanitarian contexts is dependent on the findings from such studies and that tailored ethical guidelines for drone deployment in humanitarian action be created to reflect the results of such studies. (shrink)

We can learn about human ethics from machines. We discuss the design of a working machine for making ethical decisions, the N-Reasons platform, applied to the ethics of robots. This N-Reasons platform builds on web based surveys and experiments, to enable participants to make better ethical decisions. Their decisions are better than our existing surveys in three ways. First, they are social decisions supported by reasons. Second, these results are based on weaker premises, as no exogenous expertise (aside (...) from that provided by the participants) is needed to seed the survey. Third, N-Reasons is designed to support experiments so we can learn how to improve the platform. We sketch experimental results that show the platform is a success as well as pointing to ways it can be improved. (shrink)

AbstractDespite the fact that people usually believe that individual health rights have an intrinsic value, they have, in fact, only extrinsic value. They are context dependent. While in normal conditions the current societies try to guarantee individual health rights, the challenge arises in emergency situations. Ones of them are pandemics including current covid-19 pandemic. Emergency situations challenge individual health rights due to insufficient medical resources and non-random criteria of selection of patients. However, there are some reasons to assume that societal (...) and technological processes in the near future will threaten permanently individual health rights in normal conditions. Such processes include progress in commonly available human enhancement technologies, and progress in robotics and automation. In this paper I show how individual health rights will be challenged in both scenarios including catastrophic events and future technological progress. In both cases, the idea of assisted dying is discussed as possibly the unique healthcare principle available for people whose individual health rights will be limited or canceled due to catastrophes or technological and financial exclusion. The special case of future space missions is also discussed as an example of an extreme environment affecting the way moral norms are viewed in health care ethics. (shrink)

Table of Contents Foreword .................................................................................................... ......................................... xiv Preface .................................................................................................... .............................................. xv Acknowledgment .................................................................................................... .......................... xxiii Section 1 On the Cusp: Critical Appraisals of a Growing Dependency on Intelligent Machines Chapter 1 Algorithms versus Hive Minds and the Fate of Democracy ................................................................... 1 Rick Searle, IEET, USA Chapter 2 We Can Make Anything: Should We? .................................................................................................. 15 Chris Bateman, University of Bolton, UK Chapter 3 Grounding Machine Ethics within the Natural System ........................................................................ 30 Jared Gassen, JMG Advising, USA Nak Young Seong, Independent Scholar, (...) South Korea Section 2 From the Outside In: Intelligent Machine Technologies as a Window on Human Morality both as Evolved and as Evident in Internet Discourse, Today Chapter 4 The Emergence of Arti cial Autonomy: A View from the Foothills of a Challenging Climb ............. 51 Fernando da Costa Cardoso, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Luís Moniz Pereira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Chapter 5 Semantic Analysis of Bloggers Experiences as a Knowledge Source of Average Human Morality .... 73 Rafal Rzepka, Hokkaido University, Japan Kenji Araki, Hokkaido University, Japan Section 3 From the Inside Out: The Ethics of Human Enhancement from Moral Perception to Competition in the Workplace Chapter 6 Machine Ethics Interfaces: An Ethics of Perception of Nanocognition ............................................... 97 Melanie Swan, Kingston University, UK Chapter 7 Ethical Concerns in Human Enhancement: Advantages in Corporate/Organizational Settings ......... 124 Ben Tran, Alliant International University, USA Section 4 From Far to Near and Near to Far: The Ethics of Distancing Technologies in Education and Warfare Chapter 8 Responsibility and War Machines: Toward a Forward-Looking and Functional Account ................. 152 Jai Galliott, Macquarie University, Australia Chapter 9 Ethical Responsibilities of Preserving Academicians in an Age of Mechanized Learning: Balancing the Demands of Educating at Capacity and Preserving Human Interactivity ................... 166 James E. Willis III, Indiana University, USA Viktoria Alane Strunk, Independent Scholar, USA Section 5 Wrapping Things Up, then Unwrapping Them Again: Integral Visions of Morality in a Technological World, Over Evolutionary Time, with Revolutionary Means, and with Open Questions about the Final Purpose of It All Chapter 10 Bridging Two Realms of Machine Ethics ........................................................................................... 197 Luís Moniz Pereira, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal Ari Saptawijaya, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal & Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia Chapter 11 Robots in Warfare and the Occultation of the Existential Nature of Violence ................................... 225 Rick Searle, IEET, USA Chapter 12 Self-Referential Complex Systems and Aristotle’s Four Causes ........................................................ 239 Aleksandar Malecic, University of Nis, Serbia Related References .................................................................................................... ........................ 261 Compilation of References .................................................................................................... ........... 292 About the Contributors .................................................................................................... ................ 325 Index .................................................................................................... ............................................... 329 . (shrink)

In this article, I propose an ethical analysis of assistive domestic robots for older users. In doing so, I illustrate my inquiry with the example of ROB-IN assistive robot. ROB-IN is a Spanish project which is devoted to developing a robot that will perform in the private home of nondependent, aged users. It is aimed to help people in their daily activities and contribute to appropriate health monitoring. One of their potentially most useful features is related to data gathering and (...) sharing. For the inquiry on the ethical underpinnings of this case, I develop a framework for domestic assistive robots for competent older adults drawn on the ethics of care. I assess that this type of robots could be ethically appraised attending to their impact on the well-being and autonomy of users. I approach autonomy from a relational perspective, and I delve into the relationship between autonomy and well-being through the concept of paternalism. I argue that this type of assistive robots should never act paternalistically. Given ROB-IN great implications regarding privacy, I subsequently explore the ways in which the privacy of users should be respected in their interaction with assistive robots, focusing on the relation with autonomy and well-being. Lastly, I highlight the need for avoiding ageism. This investigation focuses on aged users, but it is suggested that the situation of caregivers should be also the object of further investigations. (shrink)

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 illustrative 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. -/- . (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are digital technologies that will have significant impact on the development of humanity in the near future. They have raised fundamental questions about what we should do with these systems, what the systems themselves should do, what risks they involve, and how we can control these. - After the Introduction to the field (§1), the main themes (§2) of this article are: Ethical issues that arise with AI systems as objects, i.e., tools made and (...) used by humans. This includes issues of privacy (§2.1) and manipulation (§2.2), opacity (§2.3) and bias (§2.4), human-robot interaction (§2.5), employment (§2.6), and the effects of autonomy (§2.7). Then AI systems as subjects, i.e., ethics for the AI systems themselves in machine ethics (§2.8) and artificial moral agency (§2.9). Finally, the problem of a possible future AI superintelligence leading to a “singularity” (§2.10). We close with a remark on the vision of AI (§3). - For each section within these themes, we provide a general explanation of the ethical issues, outline existing positions and arguments, then analyse how these play out with current technologies and finally, what policy consequences may be drawn. (shrink)

Can robots have significant moral status? This is an emerging topic of debate among roboticists and ethicists. This paper makes three contributions to this debate. First, it presents a theory – ‘ethical behaviourism’ – which holds that robots can have significant moral status if they are roughly performatively equivalent to other entities that have significant moral status. This theory is then defended from seven objections. Second, taking this theoretical position onboard, it is argued that the performative threshold that robots need (...) to cross in order to be afforded significant moral status may not be that high and that they may soon cross it (if they haven’t done so already). Finally, the implications of this for our procreative duties to robots are considered, and it is argued that we may need to take seriously a duty of ‘procreative beneficence’ towards robots. (shrink)

The article discusses the ethical problems that arise when implementing the processes of digitization and robotization in medicine, and focuses on the relationship between the doctor and the patient. The purpose of this article is to identify the limits of the transformative impact of these processes on the medical profession. The possibilities and disadvantages of telemedicine are considered, and the role of artificial intelligence in modern medical practice is analyzed. A comparative characteristic of the traditional paternalistic model of the doctor’s (...) attitude to the patient and the modern engineering model replacing it is given. The study identified risks of computerization for doctors and patients, which may include the lack of direct contact between the doctor and the patient, the inability to “physical examination,” the uncertainty of liability for medical errors, as well as problems of maintaining the confidentiality of personal data of patients. The dominance of a technical-type model can lead to depersonalization of the patient and replacement of most doctors with artificial intelligence systems and robots. Since modern medicine belongs to two categories – “human territory,” which implies taking care of a person as the main task, and “machine territory,” which is associated with the automation of many processes, the article raises a natural question about the place of a doctor in the modern world. The analysis made it possible to draw some conclusions. With the widespread introduction of artificial intelligence and robotic systems into medicine, the relationship between doctor and patient is being transformed. Diagnostics, treatment and medical manipulations will increasingly be assigned to machines, which will free doctors from the impossible task of collecting a huge array of medical data and free up time to communicate with patients. Intelligent machines and robotic systems will outperform doctors in diagnosing diseases and performing precise surgeries, but they will never replace doctors in caring for patients. An important task of modern medicine is to maintain “live contact” between the doctor and the patient. (shrink)

The advent of the intelligent robot has occupied a significant position in society over the past decades and has given rise to new issues in society. As we know, the primary aim of artificial intelligence or robotic research is not only to develop advanced programs to solve our problems but also to reproduce mental qualities in machines. The critical claim of artificial intelligence advocates is that there is no distinction between mind and machines and thus they argue that there are (...) possibilities for machine ethics, just as human ethics. Unlike computer ethics, which has traditionally focused on ethical issues surrounding human use of machines, AI or machine ethics is concerned with the behaviour of machines towards human users and perhaps other machines as well, and the ethicality of these interactions. The ultimate goal of machine ethics, according to the AI scientists, is to create a machine that itself follows an ideal ethical principle or a set of principles; that is to say, it is guided by this principle or these principles in decisions it makes about possible courses of action it could takea. Thus, machine ethics task of ensuring ethical behaviour of an artificial agent. Although, there are many philosophical issues related to artificial intelligence, but our attempt in this paper is to discuss, first, whether ethics is the sort of thing that can be computed. Second, if we are ascribing mind to machines, it gives rise to ethical issues regarding machines. And if we are not drawing the difference between mind and machines, we are not only redefining specifically human mind but also the society as a whole. Having a mind is, among other things, having the capacity to make voluntary decisions and actions. The notion of mind is central to our ethical thinking, and this is because the human mind is self-conscious, and this is a property that machines lack, as yet. (shrink)

There are only a few ethical regulations that deal explicitly with robots, in contrast to a vast number of regulations, which may be applied. We will focus on ethical issues with regard to “responsibility and autonomous robots”, “machines as a replacement for humans”, and “tele-presence”. Furthermore we will examine examples from special fields of application (medicine and healthcare, armed forces, and entertainment). We do not claim to present a complete list of ethical issue nor of regulations in the field of (...) robotics, but we will demonstrate that there are legal challenges with regard to these issues. (shrink)