Robot Ethics
Don Howard Department of Philosophy and Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values University of Notre Dame
Digital Week University of Notre Dame September 22, 2015
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Introduction
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Robot Revolution
The robotics and AI revolution is already well underway, and it will reshape our lives far more dramatically than even the internet/information revolution.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Robot Revolution
The robotics and AI revolution is already well underway, and it will reshape our lives far more dramatically than even the internet/information revolution.
The steady replacement of human by machine labor.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Robot Revolution
The robotics and AI revolution is already well underway, and it will reshape our lives far more dramatically than even the internet/information revolution.
The steady replacement of human by machine labor.
Autonomous warfare.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Robot Revolution
The robotics and AI revolution is already well underway, and it will reshape our lives far more dramatically than even the internet/information revolution.
The steady replacement of human by machine labor.
Autonomous warfare.
Patient care robots.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Robot Revolution
The robotics and AI revolution is already well underway, and it will reshape our lives far more dramatically than even the internet/information revolution.
The steady replacement of human by machine labor.
Autonomous warfare.
Patient care robots.
Self-driving cars.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Robot Revolution
As with all such transformations, there will be ethical gains and ethical challenges.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Robot Revolution
As with all such transformations, there will be ethical gains and ethical challenges.
It is imperative that we be aware of and respond to both.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Conceptual Preliminaries
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Is A Robot?
Not all robots have humanoid features.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Is A Robot?
Not all robots have humanoid features.
This is a robot.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Is A Robot?
Not all robots have humanoid features.
And this is a robot, too.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Is A Robot?
SENSE - THINK - ACT
That is a widely accepted definition of a robot, a system that can perceive information, process that information, and take action based upon the processing of that information.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Is A Robot?
SENSE - THINK - ACT
But . . .
Must “sensing” involve only vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell? Or does any input quailfy?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Is A Robot?
SENSE - THINK - ACT
But . . .
Must “sensing” involve only vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell? Or does any input quailfy?
Must “acting” involve only setting matter in motion?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Is A Robot?
SENSE - THINK - ACT
But . . .
Must “sensing” involve only vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell? Or does any input quailfy?
Must “acting” involve only setting matter in motion?
And will any processing suffice for “thinking,” or must some form of higher machine intelligence be involved?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Is A Robot?
SENSE - THINK - ACT
Is your Android phone a robot?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Precautionary Principle
We made big mistakes in the past, as with a hydrocarbon fuels economy that now drives global climate warming.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Precautionary Principle
We made big mistakes in the past, as with a hydrocarbon fuels economy that now drives global climate warming.
Or a post-WWII synthetic petrochemical industry, by-products of which poison our environment and our own bodies.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Precautionary Principle
“Proceed with caution” should be our motto, and we must make the effort to anticipate all, possibly harmful, downstream conseuqences of the introduction of any new technology.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 The Precautionary Principle
“Proceed with caution” should be our motto, and we must make the effort to anticipate all, possibly harmful, downstream conseuqences of the introduction of any new technology.
But we cannot let uncertainty and fear throttle technological innovation.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Ethics Is Not Just Saying, “No.”
It is the responsibility of the ethicist to sound the alarm when inattention or unconcern are leading us to disaster.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Ethics Is Not Just Saying, “No.”
It is the responsibility of the ethicist to sound the alarm when inattention or unconcern are leading us to disaster.
But it is an equal obligation of the ethicist to help us find those perhaps not yet recognized opportunities where new technologies can better the human condition and to help us think through the needed transition.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 And We Can’t Just Leave Ethics to the Ethicist
In the best of all possible worlds, an engagement with ethics should be part of the work-a-day routine of the scientist and the engineer.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Whatever You Do, Don’t Turn to Hollywood for Advice
The robot apocalypse is not upon us, nor will any such catastrophe likely befall humankind.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Specific Areas of Concern and Promise
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Autonomous Weapons
Three years ago, Human Rights Watch issued a call for a global ban on autonomous weapons systems.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Autonomous Weapons
Three years ago, Human Rights Watch issued a call for a global ban on autonomous weapons systems.
They argued that morality requires emotions, that machines cannot, in principle, experience emotion, and that, therefore, autonomous weapons are fundamentally immoral.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Autonomous Weapons
Three years ago, Human Rights Watch issued a call for a global ban on autonomous weapons systems.
They argued that morality requires emotions, that machines cannot, in principle, experience emotion, and that, therefore, autonomous weapons are fundamentally immoral.
They argued also that robot weapons would, in principle, be incapable of respecting the international law of armed conflict (ILOAC) and international humanitarian law (IHL), because they could not do such things as distinguish combatants from non- combatants, as required by ILOAC.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Autonomous Weapons
Proponents of autonomous weapons argue that robot combatants can be more moral than human combatants, because they never feel fatigue, fear, anger, or despair, and they can be programmed not to fire in uncertain circumstances where self- preservation forces a human combatant to fire.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Autonomous Weapons
Proponents of autonomous weapons argue that robot combatants can be more moral than human combatants, because they never feel fatigue, fear, anger, or despair, and they can be programmed not to fire in uncertain circumstances where self- preservation forces a human combatant to fire.
Moreover, they argue that greater accuracy, better situational awareness, superior speed of processing information, and absolutely strict adherence to ILOAC will mean fewer war crimes and reduced collateral casualties.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Autonomous Weapons
Proponents of autonomous weapons argue that robot combatants can be more moral than human combatants, because they never feel fatigue, fear, anger, or despair, and they can be programmed not to fire in uncertain circumstances where self- preservation forces a human combatant to fire.
Moreover, they argue that greater accuracy, better situational awareness, superior speed of processing information, and absolutely strict adherence to ILOAC will mean fewer war crimes and reduced collateral casualties.
And replacing human combatants with robots will save the lives of many of our own military personnel.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Autonomous Weapons
The argument is not merely an academic one, nor one only about future developments, because fully autonomous weapons systems have already been deployed for a considerable time.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Autonomous Weapons
In July, the Future of Life Institute renewed the call for a ban, but this time only on offensive autonomous weapons, the appeal signed by thousands, including the likes of Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Autonomous Weapons
In July, the Future of Life Institute renewed the call for a ban, but this time only on offensive autonomous weapons, the appeal signed by thousands, including the likes of Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking.
Now the emphasis is on the argument that, if we don’t ban such systems now, we will soon find ourselves in a global, autonomous weapons arms race that will spiral out of control.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Do You Think?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Replacement of Human by Machine Labor
Industrial robots long ago began discplacing human labor.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Replacement of Human by Machine Labor
Industrial robots long ago began discplacing human labor.
Now they are moving into the service sector of the economy.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Replacement of Human by Machine Labor
Industrial robots long ago began discplacing human labor.
Now they are moving into the service sector of the economy.
And we are even beginning to see machine replacement of intellectual labor.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Replacement of Human by Machine Labor
The social costs can be huge.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Replacement of Human by Machine Labor
The social costs can be huge.
Are we prepared for a world without work?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Do You Think?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Humanoid, Android, Gynoid
Why are all of the humanoid robots either White or Asian?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Humanoid, Android, Gynoid
Why are all of the humanoid robots either White or Asian?
Why do so many of them have attractive, female features?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Humanoid, Android, Gynoid
Why are all of the humanoid robots either White or Asian?
Why do so many of them have attractive, female features?
And why, when so many humanoid robots have female features, do we speak mainly only of “Androids”?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Humanoid, Android, Gynoid
Have you ever seen an African-American or Native-American robot?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Humanoid, Android, Gynoid
Have you ever seen an African-American or Native-American robot?
What about a differently-abled robot?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Humanoid, Android, Gynoid
In our proposed code of ethics for the human-robot interactions profession, ND roboticist, Laurel Riek, and I suggested a ban on any humanoid features that are not essential for achieving the robot’s design objectives.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Do You Think?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Privacy
Social robots, including robot clerks, companion robots, and service robots, cannot do their jobs without collecting massive amounts of data about us.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Privacy
Social robots, including robot clerks, companion robots, and service robots, cannot do their jobs without collecting massive amounts of data about us.
Who owns that data? Where is it stored? Does it live forever? Who else has access to it?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Privacy
E-Z Pass highway gates and automated red light camera and ticketing systems are also robots whose work requires the collection of personal data.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Privacy
E-Z Pass highway gates and automated red light camera and ticketing systems are also robots whose work requires the collection of personal data.
Again, who owns the data? If the information is part of a police record, does it thereby become public?
And, btw, how should we feel about someone’s being convicted of a crime without any direct involvement by a human being?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Privacy
What about all of those drones, flying overhead and taking pics and real-time video?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Privacy
What about all of those drones, flying overhead and taking pics and real-time video?
Myself, I worry more about private and corporate data collection than about government surveillance.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Do You Think?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Health Care Robots
One of the fastest growing markets for robots is in health care. Less visible in the US, so far, this trend is much farther advanced in Japan, and major medical equipment makers, like Siemens, are investing heavily.
Until now, these robots do mainly the dull, dirty, and difficult jobs, like delivering meals and providing physical assistance with moving patients.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Health Care Robots
One of the fastest growing markets for robots is in health care. Less visible in the US, so far, this trend is much farther advanced in Japan, and major medical equipment makers, like Siemens, are investing heavily.
Until now, these robots do mainly the dull, dirty, and difficult jobs, like delivering meals and providing physical assistance with moving patients.
But some are serving as do companion animals.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Health Care Robots
The potential gains in patient safety and quality of life are huge, as are the cost savings in an economny where there are not enough human workers to provide basic patient care.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Health Care Robots
The potential gains in patient safety and quality of life are huge, as are the cost savings in an economny where there are not enough human workers to provide basic patient care.
But there are concerns when robots are interacting with patients, including touching them, in their most private and vulnerable moments.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Health Care Robots
The potential gains in patient safety and quality of life are huge, as are the cost savings in an economny where there are not enough human workers to provide basic patient care.
But there are concerns when robots are interacting with patients, including touching them, in their most private and vulnerable moments.
How do we protect patient dignity and rights while improving patient care?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Do You Think?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Telepresence Robots
Another area of rapid growth with tremendous potential for enhancing human well being is telepresence robots.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Telepresence Robots
Another area of rapid growth with tremendous potential for enhancing human well being is telepresence robots.
They enable home-bound children to attend school with their classmates, not just learning, but being part of a rich, social world.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Telepresence Robots
Another area of rapid growth with tremendous potential for enhancing human well being is telepresence robots.
They enable top-tier physicians to serve many more patients.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Telepresence Robots
Another area of rapid growth with tremendous potential for enhancing human well being is telepresence robots.
They enable top-tier physicians to serve many more patients.
And expert surgery can now be done from afar, including on the battlefield or in refugee camps.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Telepresence Robots
But serious safety concerns have been raised about error rates in telepresence surgery, because the surgeon is not physically present and must learn to manipulate delicate surgical tools without the same kind of touch as in hands-on surgery.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Telepresence Robots
And other applications of telepresence robots raise, yet again, serious privacy concerns, because the words and actions of everyone sharing space with such a robot are being recorded and transmitted elsewhere.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Do You Think?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Self-Driving Cars
The single most urgent needed robotic technology is self-driving cars.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Self-Driving Cars
The single most urgent needed robotic technology is self-driving cars.
Driver error is the ultimate cause of almost every vehicular accident.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Self-Driving Cars
The single most urgent needed robotic technology is self-driving cars.
Driver error is the ultimate cause of almost every vehicular accident.
We could save ca. 30K lives in the US every year, and 1.2M lives globally, through replacing all human drivers with self-driving cars.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Self-Driving Cars
The single most urgent needed robotic technology is self-driving cars.
Moreover, self-driving cars will empower the disabled and the elderly as will almost no other such technology.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Self-Driving Cars
The single most urgent needed robotic technology is self-driving cars.
This is, basically, a solved technical problem.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Self-Driving Cars
The single most urgent needed robotic technology is self-driving cars.
This is, basically, a solved technical problem.
Among the major remaining impediments are a lack of uniform, national and inter- national standards and uniform licensing requirements.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Self-Driving Cars
The single most urgent needed robotic technology is self-driving cars.
This is a situation in which the ethicist can help to advance technology for the common good.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Do You Think?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Teaching Ethics to Robots
One essential step toward both answering the ethical concerns and realizing the ethical promise of robotics is our figuring out how to teach ethics to robots.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Teaching Ethics to Robots
One essential step toward both answering the ethical concerns and realizing the ethical promise of robotics is our figuring out how to teach ethics to robots.
This is the focus of a small, but rapidly growing field of research.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Teaching Ethics to Robots
One essential step toward both answering the ethical concerns and realizing the ethical promise of robotics is our figuring out how to teach ethics to robots.
This is the focus of a small, but rapidly growing field of research.
And it is, in fact, the topic of my newest research project, in collaboration with Dr. Ioan Muntean, of UNC Asheville.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Teaching Ethics to Robots
Our approach breaks the mold by asking how we can turn artificial moral agents into moral learners.
Inspired by the virtue ethics tradition, our model starts with populations of neural networks trained initially using genetic algorithms, sort of like the way we first inculcate moral habits in our children.
Our goal is flexible and general, but domain-specific moral competence.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Teaching Ethics to Robots
We want the life-and-death decisions of the self-driving car and the warrior robot informed by a sensitive and nuanced moral capability.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Teaching Ethics to Robots
We want rescue robots to make thoughtful decisions about whom and how to save, by contrast with the heartless, merely algorithmic decision that was the central tragedy driving Will Smith’s character in “I, Robot.”
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Teaching Ethics to Robots
And I want the patient care robot to treat my aging mother with proper dignity and respect when it lifts her from bed to bath, knowing when to avert its gaze and how to balance a respect for privacy with its responsibilty to protect and serve.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Do You Think?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Cyborgs: Blurring the Human-Robot Boundary
Some of the most remarkable and life- enhancing recent developments in robotics have come in the form of new- age prosthetics, with onboard AI and direct brain control.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Cyborgs: Blurring the Human-Robot Boundary
Some of the most remarkable and life- enhancing recent developments in robotics have come in the form of new- age prosthetics, with onboard AI and direct brain control.
Brain implants for stimulating memory and for downloading, uploading, and transferring memories are now fact, not fiction.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Cyborgs: Blurring the Human-Robot Boundary
Some of the most remarkable and life- enhancing recent developments in robotics have come in the form of new- age prosthetics, with onboard AI and direct brain control.
Brain implants for stimulating memory and for downloading, uploading, and transferring memories are now fact, not fiction.
And we can now engineer nanoscale, biocompatible electronics into synthetic organs.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Cyborgs: Blurring the Human-Robot Boundary
Will we become one with the machine?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 What Do You Think?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 “Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief objective of all technological endeavors . . . in order that the creations of our minds shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.”
Albert Einstein, “Science and Happiness,” Lecture, Caltech, February 16, 1931.
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Want to Hear a Cool Song?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015 Want to Hear a Cool Song?
Robot Ethics, ND Digital Week, September 22, 2015