Session-1: Designing the "perfect" assistant

Doctor Craft roars to his robot Alpha+: «Get off me, you confounded beast» and gives it a shove as it is trying to wake him up.

Discussion

about ethical issues appearing in the Chapters 1-5 of the novel the Vestigial Heart:

  • 1.A - Should public trust and confidence in robots be enforced? If so, how?

  • 1.B - Is it admissible that robots be designed to generate addiction?

  • 1.C - Should the possibility of deception be actively excluded at design time?

  • 1.D - Could robots be used to control people?

Readings to know more:

  • Principles of Robotics

  • Borenstein J., Arkin R. (2016) Robotic Nudges: The Ethics of Engineering a More Socially Just Human Being. Science and engineering ethics, 22(1): 31-46.

  • Breazeal, C. (2015) Jibo Is as Good as Social Robots Get. But Is That Good Enough? IEEE Spectrum. http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/home-robots/jibo-is-as-good-as-social-robots-get-but-is-that-good-enough

  • Espingardeiro A. (2015) Social Assistive Robots, Reframing the Human Robotics Interaction Benchmark of Social Success. Intl. J. of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering, 9(1): 377 - 382.

  • Ingram B., Jones D., Lewis A., Richards M., Rich C., Schachterle L. (2010) A code of ethics for robotics engineers. 5th ACM/IEEE Intl. Conf. on Human-Robot Interaction, 103–104. Registered in the Codes of Ethics Collection, Illinois Institute of Technology, http://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/node/4391

  • Knight H. (2014) How humans respond to robots: building public policy through good design. Brookings Report. http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports2/2014/07/how-humans-respond-to-robots

  • Matthias A. (2015) Robot Lies in Health Care: When Is Deception Morally Permissible? Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 25(2): 169-162.

  • Peltu M., Wilks Y. (2008) Close Engagements with Artificial Companions: Key Social, Psychological, Ethical and Design Issues. Oxford Internet Institute, e-Horizons Forum Discussion Paper, 14.

  • Riek L.D., Howard D. (2014) A code of ethics for the human-robot interaction profession. We Robot Conference, University of Miami.