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ethics
RO-MAN Roboethics Competition: What is an ethical home robot to you?
Open Roboethics Initiative
10 Aug 2021
So what does it mean for a robot to act ethically within a home environment? Researchers have been thinking about this question from different perspectives for the past couple of decades. Some look at...
RO-MAN 2021 Roboethics Competition: Bringing ethical robots into the home
Open Roboethics Initiative
23 Jul 2021
In 1984, Heathkit presented HERO Jr. as the first robot that could be used in households to perform a variety of tasks, such as guarding people’s homes, setting reminders, and even playing games. Fo...
Ethics is the new Quality
Alan Winfield
30 May 2021
I took part in the first panel at the BSI conference The Digital World: Artificial Intelligence. The subject of the panel was AI Governance and Ethics. My co-panelist was Emma Carmel, and we wer...
Ethics of connected and automated vehicles
AI4EU and the European Commission
11 Mar 2021
The European Commission has published a report by an independent group of experts on Ethics of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs). This report advises on specific ethical issues raised by driverl...
Fostering ethical thinking in computing
MIT News
08 Mar 2021
By Terri Park | MIT Schwarzman College of Computing
Traditional computer scientists and engineers are trained to develop solutions for specific needs, but aren’t always trained to consider their...
Back to Robot Coding part 2: the ethical black box
Alan Winfield
20 Feb 2021
In the last few days I started some serious coding. The first for 20 years, in fact, when I built the software for the BRL LinuxBots. (The coding I did six months ago doesn't really count as I was onl...
The future of robotics research: Is there room for debate?
Debates on the Future of Robotics Research
22 Jan 2021
By Brian Wang, Sarah Tang, Jaime Fernandez Fisac, Felix von Drigalski, Lee Clement, Matthew Giamou, Sylvia Herbert, Jonathan Kelly, Valentin Pertroukhin, and Florian Shkurti
As the field of robotic...
RoboTED: a case study in Ethical Risk Assessment
Alan Winfield
28 Oct 2020
A few weeks ago I gave a short paper at the excellent International Conference on Robot Ethics and Standards (ICRES 2020), outlining a case study in Ethical Risk Assessment - see our paper here. Our c...
ep.
299
podcast
On the Novelty Effect in Human-Robot Interaction, with Catharina Vesterager Smedegaard
Audrow Nash
09 Dec 2019
In this episode, we take a closer look at the effect of novelty in human-robot interaction. Novelty is the quality of being new or unusual.
The typical view is that while something is new, or “a ...
ep.
256
podcast
Socially Assistive Robots, with Maja Matarić
Audrow Nash
19 Mar 2018
In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Maja Matarić, a professor at the University of Southern California and the Chief Science Officer of Embodied, about socially assistive robotics. Socially ass...
Is AI powered government worth it?
Maëlle Gavet
27 Jul 2017
From the Australian government’s new “data-driven profiling” trial for drug testing welfare recipients, to US law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology and the deployment of propr...
Asimov’s Laws won’t stop robots harming humans so we’ve developed a better solution
The Conversation
17 Jul 2017
By Christoph Salge, Marie Curie Global Fellow, University of Hertfordshire
How do you stop a robot from hurting people? Many existing robots, such as those assembling cars in factories, shut down ...
Helping or hacking? Engineers and ethicists must work together on brain-computer interface technology
The Conversation
22 Jun 2017
A subject plays a computer game as part of a neural security experiment at the University of Washington.
Patrick Bennett, CC BY-ND
By Eran Klein, University of Washington and Katherine Pratt, Unive...
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 “...
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...
The infrastructure of life part 1: Safety
Alan Winfield
26 Jan 2017
Part 1: Autonomous Systems and Safety
We all rely on machines. All aspects of modern life, from transport to energy, work to welfare, play to politics depend on a complex infrastructure of physical...
Responsive and Responsible Leadership given prominance at #WEF17 World Economic Forum
Alex Kirkpatrick
20 Jan 2017
The population of the scenic ski-resort Davos, nestled in the Swiss Alps, swelled by nearly +3,000 people between the 17th and 20th of January. World leaders, academics, business tycoons, press and in...
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 ...
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 ...
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...
Robots at your service: Empowering healthy aging at European Robotics Week, 2016
Thosha Moodley
08 Dec 2016
The European Robotics Week in 2016 took place from 18 to 22 November in several countries including The Netherlands, Austria, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Serbia and many more. This event has been occ...
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...
Automation should complement professional expertise, not replace it
Frank Pasquale
19 Oct 2016
Will your next doctor be an app? A cost-cutting NHS wants more patients to act as “self-carers,” with some technologized assistance. A series of flowcharts and phone trees might tell parents whose...
Why robots need to be able to say ‘No’
Matthias Scheutz
13 Apr 2016
Should you always do what other people tell you to do? Clearly not. Everyone knows that. So should future robots always obey our commands? At first glance, you might think they should, simply because ...
The ethical dilemma of self-driving cars
CIS Blog
30 Dec 2015
Self-driving cars are already cruising the streets today. And while these cars will ultimately be safer and cleaner than their manual counterparts, they can’t completely avoid accidents altogether. ...
Major debate on robots & society sets scene for #ERW2015 European Robotics Week
Adriana Hamacher
26 Nov 2015
A mouthwatering array of over 750 events has been taking place throughout Europe this week as the continent celebrates Robotics Week 2015. The festivities began with an eye-opening debate on "Robots a...
On the ethics of research in robotics, with Raja Chatila
In this video lecture, IEEE Fellow Raja Chatila shares his views on [tweetquote]why roboticists are duty-bound to educate the wider public on the state of advanced robotics[/tweetquote], and also t...
ep.
191
podcast
TechBridgeWorld, with M. Bernardine Dias
Audrow Nash
18 Sep 2015
Transcript below
In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews M. Bernardine Dias, Associate Research Professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, about TechBridgeWorld. TechBridgeW...
Icelandic research institute unveils ethical robotics policy
Adriana Hamacher
16 Sep 2015
The Icelandic Institute of Intelligent Machines (IIIM) has become the first R&D centre in the world to adopt a policy that repudiates development of robotic technologies intended for military oper...
Two media critiques about our future with robots
Frank Tobe
26 May 2015
After years of alarmist comments from robo-ethicists, futurists, technologists, business leaders and pundits, including Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking, two journalists bring some reality to...
Robot caregivers: How much interaction with a robot is socially acceptable?
Open Roboethics Initiative
28 Jan 2015
With the continuous increase in life expectancy and the number of people aged 65+ on the rise, it is no wonder that many roboticists have been discussing the use of robot as companion/caregiver for e...
Slow down that runaway ethical trolley
Bryant Walker Smith
13 Jan 2015
The runaway trolley has chased automated motor vehicles into the new year.
In early 2012, I raised a variation of the classic thought experiment to argue that there is not always a single absolu...
Automata: The new “sci-fi” blockbuster set to put robot ethics under a spotlight
Adriana Hamacher
19 Sep 2014
A major new sci-fi movie, Automata, promises to not only provide a feast for the eyes (see below for a clip from the film), but an overdue opportunity to spotlight some of the ethical dilemmas arising...
Facebook – Our ffriendly automated identity bender
Jason Millar
11 Jul 2014
I like Star Wars. I like technology. I like philosophy. I like teaching. I like the occasional meme. I like robots. I like a lot of things.
But if I were to give an accurate account of the things t...
ep.
158
podcast
A Code of Ethics for HRI Practitioners, with Laurel Riek
AJung Moon
14 Jun 2014
Human-robot interaction is a fascinating field of research in robotics. It also happens to be the field that is closely related to many of the ethical concerns raised with regards to interactive robot...
