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To really help US workers, invest in robots
Nikolaus Correll
31 Mar 2017
America’s manufacturing heyday is gone, and so are millions of jobs, lost to modernization. Despite what Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin might think, the National Bureau of Economic Research and S...
Artificial people: How will the law adapt to intelligent systems?
Rob van den Hoven van Genderen
31 Mar 2017
Robotics technology is no longer limited to industry. Climate Controls, 3D printers, surveillance robots, drones, household and even sex robots are entering the private market. The more autonomous the...
Asimov’s laws of robotics are not the moral guidelines they appear to be
Tom Sorell
29 Mar 2017
Seventy-five years ago, the celebrated science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published a short story called Runaround. Set on Mercury, it features a sophisticated robot nicknamed Speedy that has been or...
Should an artificial intelligence be allowed to get a patent?
Ronald Yu
09 Mar 2017
Whether an A.I. ought to be granted patent rights is a timely question given the increasing proliferation of A.I. in the workplace. Examples: Daimler-Benz has tested self-driving trucks on public road...
Artificial intelligence: Utopia or dystopia?
Margaret Boden
02 Mar 2017
Artificial intelligence (AI) already plays a major role in human economies and societies, and it will play an even bigger role in the coming years. To ponder the future of AI is thus to acknowledge th...
At what point should an intelligent machine be considered a person?
Kyle Bowyer
22 Feb 2017
Science fiction likes to depict robots as autonomous machines, capable of making their own decisions and often expressing their own personalities. Yet we also tend to think of robots as property, and ...
Legal artificial intelligence: Can it stand up in a court of law?
Ronald Yu
21 Feb 2017
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell repeatedly mentions what has become known as the “10,000-hour rule”, which states that to become world-class in any field you must devote 10,000 hours of “...
RoboLaw: Regulating robotics (video)
Kassie Perlongo
14 Feb 2017
What legal rights should a robot have? In this video, Polo Sant'Anna Valdera, one of the leading research centres for robotics, raises this important question. Innovation raises new legal and ethica...
Quest for Roboethics: An interview with Prof. Rafael Capurro
Yueh-Hsuan Weng
14 Feb 2017
In this interview, we invited Prof. Rafael Capurro to share his insights on past, current, and future trends in robot ethics....
5 global problems that AI could help us solve
Alex Gray
10 Feb 2017
There’s a great deal of concern over artificial intelligence; what it means for our jobs, whether robots will one day replace us in the workplace, whether it will one day lead to robot wars. But cur...
Georgia and Virginia legislation for automated driving and delivery robots
Bryant Walker Smith
09 Feb 2017
How Governments Can Promote Automated Driving recommended that governments conduct "legal audits" to "identify and analyze every statute and regulation that could apply adversely or ambiguously to au...
Technical challenges in machine ethics
Yueh-Hsuan Weng
08 Feb 2017
Machine ethics offers an alternative solution for artificial intelligence (AI) safety governance. In order to mitigate risks in human-robot interactions, robots will have to comply with humanity’s e...
Artificial intelligence and ethics: Who does the thinking?
Alex Kirkpatrick
27 Jan 2017
On the 15th November 2016, the IEEE’s AI and Ethics Summit posed the question: “Who does the thinking?” In a series of key-note speeches and lively panel discussions, leading technologists, leg...
EU needs to take the lead on regulating robots and artificial intelligence, MEPs suggest
Robohub Editors
16 Jan 2017
EU rules for the fast-evolving field of robotics, for example, compliance with ethical standards and liability for accidents involving driverless cars, should be put forward by the EU Commission, urge...
Brian Cox presents Science Matters: Machine learning and artificial intelligence
Robohub Editors
11 Jan 2017
We're beginning to see more and more jobs being performed by machines, even creative tasks like writing music or painting can now be carried out by a computer.
But how and when will machines be abl...
MIT Media Lab to participate in $27 million initiative on AI ethics and governance
MIT News
10 Jan 2017
The MIT Media Lab and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University will serve as the founding anchor institutions for a new initiative aimed at bridging the gap between the ...
A report on the ELS Workshop 2016
The Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Social Robots in Healthcare and Education Workshop (also called ELS Workshop) was held in Yokohama the 14th Nov 2016 during the JSAI-isAI Conference. The works...
Jibo look-alike appears on Chinese websites
Frank Tobe
29 Dec 2016
For all of us who participated in the Jibo IndieGoGo crowdfunding and are anxiously awaiting delivery - which has been delayed again - this Chinese knock-off came as quite a surprise....
Ethically Aligned Design
Alan Winfield
27 Dec 2016
Having been involved in roboethics for some years, I was delighted when the IEEE launched its initiative on Ethical Considerations in AI and Autonomous Systems, early this year. Especially so because ...
Uber must follow California’s laws
Bryant Walker Smith
19 Dec 2016
Uber is testing its self-proclaimed “self-driving” vehicles on California roads without complying with the testing requirements of California’s automated driving law. California’s Department o...
How do we regulate robo-morality?
Yueh-Hsuan Weng
15 Dec 2016
In April 2016, British Standards Institution (BSI) published the world’s first ethical standard for the design, production, sale, and usage of social robots. “BS 8611: 2016 Robots and robotic devi...
One being for two origins: A new perspective on roboethics
Yueh-Hsuan Weng
08 Dec 2016
The concept One Being for Two Origins, from the teachings of Buddha, considers the unification of technology, nature, and human beings. It emerges from the theory of the three aspects: The values of t...
Commerce announces first artificial intelligence hearing today, livestream available
Robohub Editors
30 Nov 2016
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness will convene a hearing today, 30 November, at 2:30 p.m. EST on “The Dawn of Artificial Intelligence....
Understanding the four types of AI, from reactive robots to self-aware beings
Arend Hintze
30 Nov 2016
The common, and recurring, view of the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence research is that sentient and intelligent machines are just on the horizon. Machines understand verbal commands, ...
The Ford factor: Mad scientists and corporate villains
Michael Szollosy
16 Nov 2016
Please note: The following article may contain spoilers up to Episode 5 of Westworld.
HBO’s Westworld (on Sky Atlantic here in the UK) is progressing nicely, though even now at five episodes in ...
Why watching Westworld’s robots should make us question ourselves
Tony Prescott
21 Oct 2016
For a sci-fi fan like me, fascinated by the nature of human intelligence and the possibility of building life-like robots, it’s always interesting to find a new angle on these questions. As a re-ima...
The new Westworld: Humanizing the un-human, or dehumanizing humankind?
Michael Szollosy
18 Oct 2016
HBO’s latest offering (on SkyAtlantic here in the UK) is an update of Michael Crichton‘s 1973 film Westworld; this time brought to us as a ten-part television series by sci-fi re-booter extraordin...
President Obama discusses artificial intelligence with Media Lab Director Joi Ito
MIT News
17 Oct 2016
When President Barack Obama agreed to guest-edit the November issue of WIRED, he selected MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito for an exchange of ideas about artificial intelligence (AI). Their recent inter...
White House releases reports focusing on opportunities and challenges of AI
Dave Gershgorn
14 Oct 2016
While the future of artificial intelligence is probably going to be driven by Silicon Valley, the folks in Washington DC want their say about how it will work, too.
In two reports, the White House ...
25 women in robotics you need to know about – 2016
Editor's note:
In celebration of International Women's Day, we're reposting our latest '25 Women in Robotics You Need to Know About' list. Over the last four years, Robohub has featured 100 inspir...
The Robot Economy: Interview with MEP Mady Delvaux
SPARC
08 Oct 2016
In our final interview in The Robot Economy series, we speak with Mady Delvaux, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and Chair of the Working Group on robotics. Mady has written an extensive draft ...
The Robot Economy: Interview with Alan Manning
SPARC
27 Sep 2016
In today’s interview, we sat down with Alan Manning, Professor of Labour Economics at the London School of Economics. He is a leading author in his field, particularly in understanding the imperfect...
What artificial intelligence will look like in 2030
Leah Burrows and Harvard SEAS
16 Sep 2016
Artificial intelligence (AI) has already transformed our lives — from the autonomous cars on the roads to the robotic vacuums and smart thermostats in our homes. Over the next 15 years, AI technolog...
Taking measure of artificial intelligence and the Turing Test
Jibo
31 Aug 2016
As far as party games go, the Imitation Game is a pretty clever and fairly entertaining one. A man and a women answer questions as if they were the other, trying to fool party guests into guessing the...
How cooperative behaviour could make artificial intelligence more human
Roger Whitaker
26 Aug 2016
Cooperation is one of the hallmarks of being human. We are extremely social compared to other species. On a regular basis, we all enter into helping others in small but important ways, whether it be l...
The Robot Economy: Interview with Alan Winfield
SPARC
24 Aug 2016
Robots and their impact on the economy is on the forefront of everyone’s mind. Will robots increase productivity and jobs, improve society, and will wealth be shared? To address this question, we’...
