Currently viewing the category:
"Robot"
Asimov had some good ideas, but we need to, you know, actually write some laws now:
As they become smarter and more widespread, autonomous machines are bound to end up making life-or-death decisions in unpredictable situations, thus assuming—or at least appearing to assume—moral agency. Weapons systems currently have human operators “in the loop”, but as [...]
It starts with asking the right questions. Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and George Bekey’s new book Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics is packed with them:
If a robot malfunctions and harms someone, who is responsible — the robot’s owner, its manufacturer, or the robot itself? Under what circumstances can robots [...]
Ekso Bionics is a company to watch. Building exoskeletons for everyday use by paraplegics is their goal by 2014. Erika Strickland’s “Good-bye, Wheelchair, Hello Exoskeleton” highlights the progress of some of Ekso’s first patients and the potential in the near future:
[Eythor] Bender, Ekso Bionics’ CEO, is confident that controlling Eksos will come to [...]
What people are able to do with the Kinect and Wii continues to blow my mind. Nintendo and Microsoft would do the world a great service if they opened-up their tech to the mod community for non-profit purposes.
I too was curious as to how the alien race that are the Transformers managed to evolve. Furthermore, why did they evolve into an easily distinguishable set of races based on morality. You realize this, no? There are two races of Transformer, AutoBots and Decepticons. They look, think, transform, and behave differently.
In [...]
Programing that mimics emotions. Though I’m not sure jealousy is the first emotion I’d like my robot to have.
Patrick Lin asks one of the more intriguing questions I’ve heard in a good long while:
My suggestion is this: If creating children is morally unproblematic, then so is creating autonomous robots, unless we can identify morally relevant differences between the two acts.
Of course, we instinctively want to defend our right [...]
Not the riveter. The maid-bot from The Jetsons. I suspect she’ll (it’ll, ze’ll? curse you non-gendered pronouns) be dusting Astro and harassing Elroy in no time.
(ht Robot Overlords)
About
Pop Bioethics, written by Kyle Munkittrick, is an effort to study the ethics of the continuing evolution of the human species via the lens of pop culture and be somewhat entertaining in the process.
Kyle's writing can also be found at Discover's The Crux, Slate's Future Tense, and at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. For questions or comments: comments [at] popbioethics [dot] com
All opinions, ideas, and words either explicit or implicit found within this website are my own and represent no other person, organization, or group.Categories
