Transcript The Quest for Robotethics A Survey

The Quest for
Robotethics
A Survey
Rafael Capurro
Distinguished Researcher in Information Ethics
School of Information Studies University of WisconsinMilwaukee
Workshop on Social Implications of IT
University of Wollongong, June 10, 2010
Sydney, Australia
http://www.capurro.de/roboethics_survey.html
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Content
Introduction
I. Recent Research in Roboethics
II. Intercultural Robethics
III. Roboethics and Digital Ontology
Conclusion
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Introduction
Ethics and robotics are two academic
disciplines, one dealing with the moral norms
and values underlying implicitly or explicitly
human behaviour and the other aiming at the
production of artificial agents, mostly as
physical devices, with some degree of
autonomy based on rules and programmes
set up by their creators.
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Introduction
Human-robot interaction raises serious ethical
questions right now that are theoretically less
ambitious but practically more important than
the possibility of the creation of moral
machines that would be more than machines
with an ethical code. The term ‘roboethics”
was coined by the engineer Gianmarco
Veruggio
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Introduction
The aim of this paper is give a brief account
of subjects, projects, groups and authors
dealing with ethical aspects of robots. I first start
with recent research on roboethics in two EU
projects namely ETHICBOTS (2005-2008) and
ETICA (2009-2011). I report on the activities of
Roboethics.org and particularly of the Technical
Committee (TC) on Roboethics of the IEEE and list
some ethical issues and principles currently
discussed. I also report briefly on the Machine
Ethics Consortium.
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Introduction
In the second part I present some views on
robotics and robots as discussed particularly
in Japan leading to what I call intercultural
roboethics, i.e., to an in-deep analysis of the
way(s) in which robots are perceived in
different cultures with different social and
moral backgrounds, values and principles.
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Introduction
An intercultural ethical analysis should make
possible to be aware of these differences as
a basis for a comparative normative ethics of
robots (genitivus obiectivus) that is still in its
infancy.
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Introduction
In the third part I briefly discuss the relationship
between roboethics and digital ontology.
In the conclusion I point to some topics and
questions for a future agenda of intercultural
roboethics
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I. Recent Research on
Roboethics
EU Project ETHICBOTS (2005-2008)
Emerging Technoethics of Human Interaction with Communication, Bionic
and Robotic Systems (2005-2008).
The project aimed at identifying crucial ethical issues in these areas such
as
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the preservation of human identity, and integrity
applications of precautionary principles
economic and social discrimination;
artificial system autonomy and accountability;
responsibilities for (possibly unintended) warfare application
nature and impact of human-machine cognitive and affective bonds on
individuals and society.
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I. Recent Research on
Roboethics
EU Project ETICA (2009-2011)
The ETICA project will identify emerging
Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs) and their potential
application areas in order to analyse and
evaluate ethical issues arising from these. By
including a variety of stakeholders and
disciplinary perspectives, it will grade and
rank foreseeable ethical risks.
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I. Recent Research on
Roboethics
Based on the study governance arrangements
currently used to address ICT ethics in
Europe, ETICA will recommend concrete
governance structures to address the most
salient ethical issues identified. These
recommendations will form the basis of more
general policy recommendations aimed at
addressing ethical issues in emerging ICTs
before or as they arise.
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I. Recent Research on
Roboethics
Roboethics.org
The IEEE-RAS Technical Committee (TC) on
Roboethics aims to provide the IEEE-RAS with a
framework for analyzing the ethical implications of
robotics research, by promoting the discussion
among researchers, philosophers, ethicists, and
manufacturers, but also by supporting the
establishment of shared tools for managing ethical
issues in this context.
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I. Recent Research on
Roboethics
The focus of the TC includes the unintended
warfare uses of robotics research results, the
preservation of human integrity in the
interaction with robotic (even bionic) systems,
and the study and development of the robotethics concept. The TC pursues its objectives
by organizing focussed events and
publications at RAS-sponsored conferences
and elsewhere."
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I. Recent Research on
Roboethics
Taxonomy:
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Humanoids
Advanced production systems
Adaptive robot servants and intelligent homes
Network Robotics
Outdoor Robotics
Health Care and Life Quality
Military Robotics
Edutainment
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I. Recent Research on
Roboethics
Ethical issues shared by Roboethics and Information
Ethics:
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Dual-use technology
Anthropomorphization of the Machines
Humanisation of the Human/Machine relationship
Technology Addiction
Digital Divide
Fair access to technological resources
Effects of technology on the global distribution of
wealth and powr
Environmental impact of technology
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I. Recent Research on
Roboethics
Ethical Principles to be followed in Roboethics:
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Human Dignity and Human Rights
Equality, Justice and Equity
Benefit and Harm
Respect for Cultural Diversity and Pluralism
Non-Discrimination and Non-Stigmatization
Autonomy and Individual Responsibility
Informed Consent
Privacy
Confidentiality
Solidarity and Cooperation
Social Responsibility
Sharing of Benefits
Responsibility towards the Biosphere
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I. Recent Research on
Roboethics
Machine Ethics Consortium, Univ. of Hartford
Machine Ethics is concerned with the behavior
of machines towards human users and other
machines. Allowing machine intelligence to
effect change in the world can be dangerous
without some restraint. Machine Ethics
involves adding an ethical dimension to
machines to achieve this restraint.
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I. Recent Research on
Roboethics
Further, machine intelligence can be harnessed
to develop and test the very theory needed to
build machines that will be ethically sensitive.
Thus, machine ethics has the additional
benefits of assisting human beings in ethical
decision-making and, more generally,
advancing the development of ethical theory.”
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Korean Robot Ethics Charter
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II. Intercultural Roboethics
1. Robots and Roboethics in Japan:
"Robots that look human tend to be a big hit
with young children and the elderly," Hiroshi
Kobayashi, Tokyo University of Science
professor and Saya's developer, said
yesterday. "Children even start crying when
they are scolded."
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II. Intercultural Roboethics
2. Further Contributions
See my presentations in 2009 for the following workshops at the
University of Tsukuba organized by Makoto Nakada:
Symposium: Ethics and Robotics, University of Tsukuba, October 3,
2009 (PowerPoint)
Cybernics, University of Tsukuba, September 30, 2009 (PowerPoint)
See also the contributions to the meeting Computing and
Philosophy (AP-CAP 2009)
Keynote: Hiroshi Ishiguro: Developing androids and
understanding humans
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III. Roboethics and Digital
Ontology
The relation between humans and robots can
be understood as a relation between
rationality and freedom or between the digital
and the existential casting of Being. In a
recent article the Australian philosopher
Michael Eldred writes:
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III. Roboethics and Digital
Ontology
"For example, a computer-controlled robot on a
production line can bring the robot's arm into
a precisely precalculated position, which is
always a rational number or an n-tuple
thereof. The robot's arm, however, will always
be in a real, physical position, no matter how
accurate the rational position calculated by
the computer is.
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III. Roboethics and Digital
Ontology
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There is therefore always an /indeterminacy/
in the computer-calculated position, a certain
/quivering/ between a rational position and an
infinity of irrational, but real positions. An
irrational, real position can never be
calculated by a computer, but only
approximated, only approached.
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III. Roboethics and Digital
Ontology
This signals the /ontological/ limit to the
calculability of physical reality for
mathematical science. It is not an
experimental result, but is obtained from
phenomenological, ontological
considerations. We must conclude: /physical
reality is irrational/. "
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III. Roboethics and Digital
Ontology
"Hence the state of any real physical being is always
an indeterminate quivering around a rationally
calculable state. Physical reality, even on a banal
macroscopic level, therefore always exceeds what
can be logically, mathematically, rationally
calculated/. This holds true all the more for those
physical beings — ourselves— whose essential
hallmark is spontaneous, /free/ movement.
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III. Roboethics and Digital
Ontology
Let me end with a quote from Goethe:
"Es waren verständige, geistreiche, lebhafte Menschen,
die wohl einsahen, daß die Summe unserer Existenz,
durch Vernunft dividiert, niemals rein aufgehe,
sondern daß immer ein wunderlicher Bruch übrig
bleibe." "They were rational, clever, lively people who
saw very well that the sum of our existence, divided by
reason, never goes evenly, but always leaves the
remainder of a queer fraction.” (Wilhelm Meisters
Lehrjahre, 4. Buch, 18. Kap.)
(Eldred 2010).
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III. Roboethics and Digital
Ontology
There is not only a tension but an abyss or a strange
or, as Eldred translates, "queer" fraction ("ein
wunderlicher Bruch") between the human mode of
existence and the mode robots are. Humans die,
robots break down or go kaputt. This insight is
important not only for philosophers but also for
roboticists in order to avoid waste of time for
instance trying to build a robot like a human or to
develop a theory where robots are to be considered
as moral beings.
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III. Roboethics and Digital
Ontology
This analysis of the ontological difference between the
modes of being of robots and humans presupposes
what I call, in accordance with Eldred, digital
ontology (Capurro 2005).
The consequence of this analysis is that robotics
should be founded in the difference and not in the
similarity between the modes of being or humans
and robots.
This analysis takes a critical stance against some
perennial myths regarding the idea of robots
becoming "like" humans.
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Conclusion
If within our present digital ontology – in case we
agree that this view of Being is a pervading one
today, as Eldred also remarks – leads us to equating
all beings (including humans) as being digitally
quantifiable and re-producable, then it is an
important philosophical and particularly ethical task
to question these metaphysical ambitions that blur
phemenological differences. Digital reductionism is
not bad per se but only when it becomes dogmatic
in theory and/or in practice.
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Conclusion
The question of what kind of transformation is
being operated in human societies when
billions of human beings interact in digital
networks that are interwoven with their
bodies is highly relevant today and in the
future. If roboticists want to create useful
robots they have to think about them within
the background of different cultures and
moralities.
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Conclusion
“What is it like to be a robot? Wittgenstein’s
famous dictum that “if a lion could speak, we
would not understand him” (Wittgenstein,
1984, p. 568) points to the issue, that human
language is rooted in what he calls “forms of
life.” Humans and lions have orthogonal
forms of life, i.e., they construct their reality
based on systemic differences. What is it like
to be a human?” (Capurro & Nagenborg
2009)
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