Robohub.org
ep.

020

podcast
 

Robot ethics (Part 2) with Ronald Arkin


by
27 February 2009



share this:

This episode closes a two-part special looking at ethical issues in robotics. Given the broad and controversial nature of this topic, we speak with two world-renowned experts in ethics with often-opposing views. Our first guest featured on our last episode, Noel Sharkey, is Professor of Public Engagement, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield in the UK. In today’s episode we interview Ronald Arkin, the director of the Mobile Robot Lab and Associate Dean of Research at Georgia Tech in the US. Both researchers discuss issues such as military robots, robots in the society, medical robots and legal responsibilities. Their opinions on these subjects have been widely covered by the media, international organizations and academia. The interviews were recorded individually and both researchers were asked the same questions.

Ronald Arkin

Ronald Arkin is Regents’ Professor and Director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology where he also serves as the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Computing.

By looking at a wide variety of autonomous mobile robots in his lab, either aerial, ground-based or swarming, he’s become a world renowned expert in robotics and control, authoring corner-stone textbooks such as Behavior-Based Robotics – Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents (MIT Press 1998).

In the past years, Arkin has become one of the pioneers in robot ethics, tuning in at the start of discussions on Roboethics in 2004. Since then he’s written several publications on the ethics of military robots, arguing that robots in the future could be more ethical than humans on the battlefield. Embedded with a sense of ethics, or even guilt, such robots could perhaps be able to make decisions in life-death situations. His views are presented in his new book to appear in spring 2009 entitled Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots.

Other than military robots, Arkin discusses issues such as the attachment of people to robots, and more generally, the role of robots as care-givers or workers in the society. He also touches on the subject of medical robots, or prosthetic, capable of enhancing the human being.

Finally, with so many questions raised on the ethics of robotics, we look into the entities which will be setting limits on the use of tomorrows robots as well as defining who takes the responsibly of their actions. Could the robots themselves be held responsible in the end?

Links:

Further reading:


Latest News:

For more information and discussion on this week’s Robots news,
including a video of the Israel’s new Harop UAV, videos of the iLean and the iHop robots and more information on CMU’s new degree program visit the Robots forum!

View and post comments on this episode in the forum



tags: , ,


Podcast team The ROBOTS Podcast brings you the latest news and views in robotics through its bi-weekly interviews with leaders in the field.
Podcast team The ROBOTS Podcast brings you the latest news and views in robotics through its bi-weekly interviews with leaders in the field.





Related posts :



Social media round-up from #IROS2025

  27 Oct 2025
Take a look at what participants got up to at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

Using generative AI to diversify virtual training grounds for robots

  24 Oct 2025
New tool from MIT CSAIL creates realistic virtual kitchens and living rooms where simulated robots can interact with models of real-world objects, scaling up training data for robot foundation models.

Robot Talk Episode 130 – Robots learning from humans, with Chad Jenkins

  24 Oct 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Chad Jenkins from University of Michigan about how robots can learn from people and assist us in our daily lives.

Robot Talk at the Smart City Robotics Competition

  22 Oct 2025
In a special bonus episode of the podcast, Claire chatted to competitors, exhibitors, and attendees at the Smart City Robotics Competition in Milton Keynes.

Robot Talk Episode 129 – Automating museum experiments, with Yuen Ting Chan

  17 Oct 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Yuen Ting Chan from Natural History Museum about using robots to automate molecular biology experiments.

What’s coming up at #IROS2025?

  15 Oct 2025
Find out what the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems has in store.

From sea to space, this robot is on a roll

  13 Oct 2025
Graduate students in the aptly named "RAD Lab" are working to improve RoboBall, the robot in an airbag.

Robot Talk Episode 128 – Making microrobots move, with Ali K. Hoshiar

  10 Oct 2025
In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Ali K. Hoshiar from University of Essex about how microrobots move and work together.



 

Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


 












©2025.05 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence