Last week I had the pleasure of debating the question “does AI pose a threat to society?” with friends and colleagues Christian List, Maja Pantic and Samantha Payne. The event was organised by the British Academy and brilliantly chaired by the Royal Society’s director of science policy Claire Craig. Here follows my opening statement:
In this interview, Dr. Yueh-Hsuan Weng invites Prof. Ronald C. Arkin, Executive Committee Member of IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems, to share his insights on roboethics, with a focus on its technical aspects, military and caregiver applications..

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, legal thinkers, philosophers, social scientists, manufacturers and policy makers considered such issues as:
- The social, technological and philosophical questions orbiting AI.
- Proposals to program ethical algorithms with human values to machines.
- The social implications of the applications of AI.
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. How should the car be programmed if it encounters an unavoidable accident? Patrick Lin navigates the murky ethics of self-driving cars in this TED-Ed lecture.
Last week the Waterloo-based Clearpath publicly pledged not to develop lethal autonomous weapons in support of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots. While the Campaign has garnered significant support since its launch, it has not previously had support from the for-profit robotics sector – making Clearpath’s public statement a noteworthy demonstration of corporate responsibility, particularly given the company’s background in military applications.
January 18, 2021
Need help spreading the word?
Join the Robohub crowdfunding page and increase the visibility of your campaign