When the social relevance of robotic applications is addressed today, the use of assistive technology in care settings is almost always the first example. So-called care robots are presented as a solution to the nursing crisis, despite doubts about their technological readiness and the lack of concrete usage scenarios in everyday nursing practice. We inquire into this interconnection of social robotics and care. We show how both are made available for each other in three arenas: innovation policy, care organization, (...) and robotic engineering. First, we analyze the discursive “logics” of care robotics within European innovation policy, second, we disclose how care robotics is encountering a historically grown conflict within health care organization, and third we show how care scenarios are being used in robotic engineering. From this diagnosis, we derive a threefold critique of robotics in healthcare, which calls attention to the politics, historicity, and social situatedness of care robotics in elderly care. (shrink)

Society has historically not taken a benign view of genetic disease. The laws permitting sterilization of the mentally re tarded~ and those proscribing consanguineous marriages are but two examples. Indeed as far back as the 5th-10th centuries, B.C.E., consanguineous unions were outlawed (Leviticus XVIII, 6). Case law has traditionally tended toward the conservative. It is reactive rather than directive, exerting its influence only after an individual or group has sustained injury and brought suit. In contrast, state legislatures have not (...) been inhibited in enacting statutes. Many of their products can be characterized as hasty, unnecessary, ill-conceived, and based on the heart rather than the head. Moreover the lack of expert consultation sought has also been remarkable. One state legislature, for example, has advocated immunization for sickle cell anemia! Many others have enacted laws for the screening of inborn errors of metabolism, e.g., phenylketon uria, but have poorly defined the lines of responsibility to secure compliance. A spate of specific disease-related bills has emerged in the u.S. Congress, each seeking recognition and appropriations. Sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, Cooley's anemia and Tay-Sachs disease have been among the front-runners for support. Finally, in 1975, Congress has begun to examine an omnibus bill concerning all forms of genetic disease. The bill, termed the National Genetic Diseases Act is, however, still far from being enacted. (shrink)

Robots that incorporate the function of apologizing have emerged in recent years. This paper examines the moral permissibility of making robots apologize. First, I characterize the nature of apology based on analyses conducted in multiple scholarly domains. Next, I present a prima facie argument that robot apologies are not permissible because they may harm human societies by inducing the misattribution of responsibility. Subsequently, I respond to a possible response to the prima facie objection based on the interpretation that (...) attributing responsibility to a robot is analogous to having an attitude toward fiction. Then, I demonstrate that there are cases of robot apologies where the prima facie objection does not apply, by considering the following two points: (1) apology-related practices found in our human-to-human apologies, and (2) a difference in the degree of harm caused by robot failures and the resulting apologies. Finally, given the current norms governing our apology-related practices, I argue that some instances of making robots apologize are permissible, and I propose conducting critical robotics research questioning the validity of such norms. (shrink)

Using Asimov’s “Bicentennial Man” as a springboard, a number of metaethical issues concerning the emerging field of machine ethics are discussed. Although the ultimate goal of machine ethics is to create autonomous ethical machines, this presents a number of challenges. A good way to begin the task of making ethics computable is to create a program that enables a machine to act an ethical advisor to human beings. This project, unlike creating an autonomous ethical machine, will not require that we (...) make a judgment about the ethical status of the machine itself, a judgment that will be particularly difficult to make. Finally, it is argued that Asimov’s “three laws of robotics” are an unsatisfactory basis for machine ethics, regardless of the status of the machine. (shrink)

Societal attitude acceptance can influence the digital transformation in agriculture. Digital technologies, such as robots in dairy farming, can lead to more sustainable, animal welfare-friendly and consumer-oriented milk production. This study used the example of the milking and feeding robots to investigate whether society accepts the use of robots in dairy farming and whether there are differences in society based on perceived risks and opportunities of digitalization in dairy farming and acceptance. To this end, an (...) online-based study was conducted with a total of 1007 citizens in Germany. Overall, the respondents in this study suspect that the use of robots in dairy farming is associated with various risks but also with opportunities for society and for farmers in particular. However, these attitudes are quite heterogeneous. Four clusters could be identified: “proponents of robots”, “indifferent citizens”, “skeptical citizens”, and “critical supporters of robots”. Proponents of robots see only opportunities and little risks, whereas the critical citizens perceive not only opportunities but also many risks of using robots in dairy farming. The indifferent citizens show a rather indifferent attitude, in contrast to the skeptical citizens, who reject the opportunities at the societal level, while they agree with the opportunities of robots for farmers. This research contributes to understanding societal attitudinal acceptance and highlights differences in society that can help inform future decisions about the development and adoption of robots in dairy farming. (shrink)

The problem of artificial intelligence and human being has always raised questions about possible interactions among them and possible effects yielded by the introduction of such un-human subject. Dreyfus deeply connects intelligence and body based on a phenomenological viewpoint. Thanks to his reading of Merleau-Ponty, he clearly stated that an intelligence must be embodied into a body to function. According to his suggestion, any AI designed to be human-like is doom to failure if there is no tight bound with a (...) human-like body. Today, we are facing the pervasive introduction of robots into our everyday life, and the problem of this co-existence raises again with new vigor since they are not mere speculations, but there are already products sold to the public. We will highlight how vulnerability has to be taken into consideration in the design of robots to create entities which are able to relate to human beings taking into consideration mainly the positions of Sartre, Habermas, Levinas, and Marleau-Ponty. A first part will focus on the vulnerability of the robots. Robots are going to be among us, but a real interaction is possible only the moment they have a “same” body of ours. Therefore, only through the realization of a “fragile” body we can achieve a cohabitation between equals. Thanks to Merleau-Ponty we will show how the vulnerability of a body is one of the most important element to found any social interaction. The second part will focus on how the robots will affect the vulnerability of the human subjects. To produce vulnerable robots is not a mere neutral introduction, but it shapes how the subjects are constituted. Thanks to Levinas, we will study how the vulnerable robots will shape the subjects. Thanks to Sartre, we will show how the creation of a different gaze in the robot changes the vulnerabilities of the human subjects. Introducing vulnerable robots is a way to shape ourselves. (shrink)

This paper proposes that existing computational modeling research programs may be combined into platforms for the information of public policy. The main idea is that computational models at select levels of organization may be integrated in natural terms describing biological cognition, thereby normalizing a platform for predictive simulations able to account for both human and environmental costs associated with different action plans and institutional arrangements over short and long time spans while minimizing computational requirements. Building from established research programs, the (...) proposal aims to take advantage of current momentum in the direction of the integration of the cognitive with social and natural sciences, reduce start-up costs and increase speed of development. These are all important upshots given rising unease over the potential for AI and related technologies to shape the world going forward. (shrink)

Robots today serve in many roles, from entertainer to educator to executioner. As robotics technology advances, ethical concerns become more pressing: Should robots be programmed to follow a code of ethics, if this is even possible? Are there risks in forming emotional bonds with robots? How might society--and ethics--change with robotics? This volume is the first book to bring together prominent scholars and experts from both science and the humanities to explore these and other questions in (...) this emerging field. Starting with an overview of the issues and relevant ethical theories, the topics flow naturally from the possibility of programming robot ethics to the ethical use of military robots in war to legal and policy questions, including liability and privacy concerns. The contributors then turn to human-robot emotional relationships, examining the ethical implications of robots as sexual partners, caregivers, and servants. Finally, they explore the possibility that robots, whether biological-computational hybrids or pure machines, should be given rights or moral consideration. Ethics is often slow to catch up with technological developments. This authoritative and accessible volume fills a gap in both scholarly literature and policy discussion, offering an impressive collection of expert analyses of the most crucial topics in this increasingly important field. (shrink)

Robots have been introduced into our society, but their social role is still unclear. A critical issue is whether the robot’s exhibition of intelligent behaviour leads to the users’ perception of the robot as being a social actor, similar to the way in which people treat computers and media as social actors. The first experiment mimicked Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment, but on a robot. The participants were asked to administer electric shocks to a robot, and the results show (...) that people have fewer concerns about abusing robots than about abusing other people. We refined the methodology for the second experiment by intensifying the social dilemma of the users. The participants were asked to kill the robot. In this experiment, the intelligence of the robot and the gender of the participants were the independent variables, and the users’ destructive behaviour towards the robot the dependent variable. Several practical and methodological problems compromised the acquired data, but we can conclude that the robot’s intelligence had a significant influence on the users’ destructive behaviour. We discuss the encountered problems and suggest improvements. We also speculate on whether the users’ perception of the robot as being “sort of alive” may have influenced the participants’ abusive behaviour. (shrink)

Robots have been introduced into our society, but their social role is still unclear. A critical issue is whether the robot’s exhibition of intelligent behaviour leads to the users’ perception of the robot as being a social actor, similar to the way in which people treat computers and media as social actors. The first experiment mimicked Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment, but on a robot. The participants were asked to administer electric shocks to a robot, and the results show (...) that people have fewer concerns about abusing robots than about abusing other people. We refined the methodology for the second experiment by intensifying the social dilemma of the users. The participants were asked to kill the robot. In this experiment, the intelligence of the robot and the gender of the participants were the independent variables, and the users’ destructive behaviour towards the robot the dependent variable. Several practical and methodological problems compromised the acquired data, but we can conclude that the robot’s intelligence had a significant influence on the users’ destructive behaviour. We discuss the encountered problems and suggest improvements. We also speculate on whether the users’ perception of the robot as being “sort of alive” may have influenced the participants’ abusive behaviour. (shrink)

In this paper a look is taken at the relatively new area of culturing neural tissue and embodying it in a mobile robot platform—essentially giving a robot a biological brain. Present technology and practice is discussed. New trends and the potential effects of and in this area are also indicated. This has a potential major impact with regard to society and ethical issues and hence some initial observations are made. Some initial issues are also considered with regard to the (...) potential consciousness of such a brain. (shrink)

Robots that can communicate with people are one of the goals reached by the technology developed for automation in work life. Experts aim to improve the communication skills of these robots further in the near future. Besides, various studies emphasize that people may interact with robots in a similar way as they interact with other people. In line of this idea, this study examines the possible causal chain in which the social anxiety affects the robot anxiety which (...) in turn affects the attitude toward interacting with robots. Data obtained from university students were analyzed in a simple and parallel mediation model. The results showed that robot anxiety and in particular two of its sub-dimensions mediate the relationship between social anxiety and negative attitudes toward interaction with robots. Researchers should carry out new studies about the common structural characteristics of the anxiety felt by people due to interacting with humans and robots. (shrink)

Mobility robots may soon be among us, triggering a need for safety regulation. Robot safety regulation, however, remains underexplored, with only a few articles analyzing what regulatory approaches could be feasible. This article offers an account of the available regulatory strategies and attempts to theorize the effects of simulation-based safety regulation. The article first discusses the distinctive features of mobility robots as regulatory targets and argues that emergent behavior constitutes the key regulatory concern in designing robot safety regulation (...) regimes. In contrast to many accounts, the article posits that emergent behavior dynamics do not arise from robot autonomy, learning capability, or code unexplainability. Instead, they emerge from the complexity of robot technological constitutions coupled with near-infinite environmental variability and non-linear performance dynamics of the machine learning components. Second, the article reviews rules-based and performance-based regulation and argues that both will fail adequately constrain emergent robot behaviors. The article claims that controlling mobility robots requires a simulation-based regulatory approach. Simulation-based regulation is a novelty with significant theoretical and practical implications. The article argues that the approach signifies a radical break in regulatory forms of knowledge and temporalities. Simulations enact virtual futures to create a new regulatory knowledge type. Practically, the novel safety knowledge type may destabilize the existing conceptual space of safety politics and liability allocation patterns. (shrink)

This paper makes the case for arms control regimes to govern the development and deployment of autonomous weapon systems and long range uninhabited aerial vehicles.

Advancements in artificial intelligence and (social) robotics raise pertinent questions as to how these technologies may help shape the society of the future. The main aim of the chapter is to consider the social and conceptual disruptions that might be associated with social robots, and humanoid social robots in particular. This chapter starts by comparing the concepts of robots and artificial intelligence and briefly explores the origins of these expressions. It then explains the definition of a (...) social robot, as well as the definition of humanoid robots. A key notion in this context is the idea of anthropomorphism: the human tendency to attribute human qualities, not only to our fellow human beings, but also to parts of nature and to technologies. This tendency to anthropomorphize technologies by responding to and interacting with them as if they have human qualities is one of the reasons why social robots (in particular social robots designed to look and behave like human beings) can be socially disruptive. As is explained in the chapter, while some ethics researchers believe that anthropomorphization is a mistake that can lead to various forms of deception, others — including both ethics researchers and social roboticists — believe it can be useful or fitting to treat robots in anthropomorphizing ways. The chapter explores that disagreement by, among other things, considering recent philosophical debates about whether social robots can be moral patients, that is, whether it can make sense to treat them with moral consideration. Where one stands on this issue will depend either on one’s views about whether social robots can have, imitate, or represent morally relevant properties, or on how people relate to social robots in their interactions with them. Lastly, the chapter urges that the ethics of social robots should explore intercultural perspectives, and highlights some recent research on Ubuntu ethics and social robots. (shrink)

The question of whether new rules or regulations are required to govern, restrict, or even prohibit the use of autonomous weapon systems has been the subject of debate for the better part of a decade. Despite the claims of advocacy groups, the way ahead remains unclear since the international community has yet to agree on a specific definition of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems and the great powers have largely refused to support an effective ban. In this vacuum, the public has (...) been presented with a heavily one-sided view of Killer Robots. This interdisciplinary volume presents a more nuanced approach to autonomous weapon systems that recognizes the need to progress beyond a discourse framed by the Terminator and HAL 9000. Re-shaping the discussion around this emerging military innovation requires a new line of thought and a willingness to challenge the orthodoxy. Lethal Autonomous Weapons focuses on exploring the moral and legal issues associated with the design, development and deployment of lethal autonomous weapons. The volume brings together some of the most prominent academics and academic-practitioners in the lethal autonomous weapons space and seeks to return some balance to the debate. As part of this effort, it recognizes that society needs to invest in hard conversations that tackle the ethics, morality, and law of these new digital technologies and understand the human role in their creation and operation. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to offer some critical remarks on the so-called pragmatist approach to the regulation of robotics. To this end, the article mainly reviews the work of Jack Balkin and Joanna Bryson, who have taken up such ap- proach with interestingly similar outcomes. Moreover, special attention will be paid to the discussion concerning the legal fiction of ‘electronic personality’. This will help shed light on the opposition between essentialist and pragmatist methodologies. After a brief introduction (1.), (...) in 2. I introduce the main points of the methodological debate which opposes pragmatism and essentialism in the regulation of robotics and I examine how legal fictions are framed from a pragmatist, functional perspective. Since this approach entails a neat separation of ontological analysis and legal rea- soning, in 3. I discuss whether considerations on robots’ essence are actually put into brackets when the pragmatist approach is endorsed. Finally, in 4. I address the problem of the social valence of legal fictions in order to suggest a possible limit of the pragmatist approach. My conclusion (5.) is that in the specific case of regulating robotics it may be very difficult to separate ontological considerations from legal reasoning—and vice versa—both on an epistemological and social level. This calls for great caution in the recourse to anthropomorphic legal fictions. (shrink)

Empirical research on human–robot interaction has demonstrated how humans tend to react to social robots with empathic responses and moral behavior. How should we ethically evaluate such responses to robots? Are people wrong to treat non-sentient artefacts as moral patients since this rests on anthropomorphism and ‘over-identification’ —or correct since spontaneous moral intuition and behavior toward nonhumans is indicative for moral patienthood, such that social robots become our ‘Others’?. In this research paper, I weave extant HRI studies (...) that demonstrate empathic responses toward robots with the recent debate on moral status for robots, on which the ethical evaluation of moral behavior toward them is dependent. Patienthood for robots has standardly been thought to obtain on some intrinsic ground, such as being sentient, conscious, or having interest. But since these attempts neglect moral experience and are curbed by epistemic difficulties, I take inspiration from Coeckelbergh and Gunkel’s ‘relational approach’ to explore an alternative way of accounting for robot patienthood based on extrinsic premises. Based on the ethics of Danish theologian K. E. Løgstrup I argue that empathic responses can be interpreted as sovereign expressions of life and that these expressions benefit human subjects—even if they emerge from social interaction afforded by robots we have anthropomorphized. I ultimately develop an argument in defense of treating robots as moral patients. (shrink)

There is a common tradition in European education going back to the Middle Ages which long played a part in providing the curriculum of schools which catered both for the wealthy and for able sons of less well-to-do families. Originally published in 1974, this volume examines the relationship between education and society in the different countries of Europe from which differences in tradition and practice emerge. The countries discussed include: France, Germany, the former Soviet Union, Poland and Sweden.

Originally published in 1972, this book is concerned with education as part of a larger social history. Chapters include: The roots of Anglican supremacy in English education The Board schools of London The use of ecclesiastical records for the history of education Topographical resources: private and secondary education from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.

Part of the educational system in England has been geared towards the preparation of particular professions, while the identity and status of members of some professions have depended significantly on the general education they have received. Originally published in 1973, this volume explores the interaction between education and the professions. It also looks at the education of the main professions in sixteenth century England and at how twentieth century university teaching is a key profession for the training of new recruits (...) to other professions. (shrink)

Originally published in 1971, this volume examines the relationship between the history and sociology of education. History does not stand in isolation, but has much to draw from and contribute to, other disciplines. The methods and concepts of sociology, in particular, are exerting increasing influence on historical studies, especially the history of education. Since education is considered to be part of the social system, historians and sociologists have come to survey similar fields; yet each discipline appears to have its own (...) aims and methodology. (shrink)

Artificially Intelligent robotic technologies increasingly reflect a language of interaction and relationship and this vocabulary is part and parcel of the meanings now attached to machines. No longer are they inert, but interconnected, responsive and engaging. As machines become more sophisticated, they are predicted to be a “direct object” of an interaction for a human, but what kinds of human would that give rise to? Before robots, animals played the role of the relational other, what can stories of feral (...) children tell us about what it means to be human? What of ‘relationship’ do AI and robotic scientists draw on to generate ideas about their relational others? I will address these questions by reference to the work of Martin Buber in I and Thou. (shrink)

Machines have always been a tool or technical instrument for human beings to facilitate and to accelerate processes through mechanical power. The same applies to robots nowadays – the next step in the evolution of machines. Over the course of the last few years, robot usage in society has expanded enormously, and they now carry out a remarkable number of tasks for us. It seems we are on the eve of a historic revolution that will change everything we (...) know right now. But not only robots have an impact on our life. It is digitization in its entirety, including smart applications and games, that confronts us with new spaces. This special volume of Ethics in Progress tries to broaden our understanding of a philosophical field – robots and digitization – that is still in its infancy in terms of it research and literature. (shrink)

This paper examines why robots are so often presented as monstrous in the popular media, regardless of the intended applications of the robots themselves. The figure of the robot monster is examined in its historical and cultural specificity—that is, as a direct descendent of monsters that we have grown accustomed to since the nineteenth century: Frankenstein, Mr. Hyde, vampires, zombies, etc. Using the psychoanalytic notion of projection, these monsters are understood as representing human anxieties regarding the dehumanising tendencies (...) of science and reason, and regarding a perceived transformation in human nature over the last two hundred years. In analysing these anxieties, we can therefore gain insight into the fears—genuine or naïve—that the public harbours towards new advancements in technology; these insights can then inform those working with and designing living machines as to how their inventions might be received. (shrink)

As robots slip into more domains of human life-from the operating room to the bedroom-they take on our morally important tasks and decisions, as well as create new risks from psychological to physical. This book answers the urgent call to study their ethical, legal, and policy impacts.

In the future, it is likely that we will form strong bonds of attachment and even develop love for social robots. Some of these loving relations will be, from the human’s perspective, as significant as a loving relationship that they might have had with another human. This means that, from the perspective of the loving human, the mindless destruction of their robot partner could be as devastating as the murder of another’s human partner. Yet, the loving partner of a (...) robot has no recourse to legal action beyond the destruction of property and can see no way to prevent future people suffering the same devastating loss. On this basis, some have argued that such a scenario must surely motivate legal protection for social robots. In this paper, I argue that despite the devastating loss that would come from the destruction of one’s robot partner, love cannot itself be a reason for granting robot rights. However, although I argue against beloved robots having protective rights, I argue that the loss of a robot partner must be socially recognised as a form of bereavement if further secondary harms are to be avoided, and that, if certain conditions obtain, the destruction of a beloved robot could be criminalised as a hate crime. (shrink)

Although Japanese society has become aware of some types of robots, social acceptance of robots is still not widespread. This study conducted an online questionnaire survey to investigate the relationships between experiences with and knowledge of vacuum, pet-type, and communication robots and acceptance of these robots, including the intention to use and trust. The results suggested that experiences with, knowledge of functions, and acceptance of the robots differed depending on the type of robot, and (...) the influence of these factors on acceptance of the robots also differed depending on the robot types. (shrink)

In this article, I shall examine some of the issues and questions involved in the technology of autonomous robots, a technology that has developed greatly and is advancing rapidly. I shall do so with reference to a particularly critical field: autonomous military robotic systems. In recent times, various issues concerning the ethical implications of these systems have been the object of increasing attention from roboticists, philosophers and legal experts. The purpose of this paper is not to deal with these (...) issues, but to show how the autonomy of those robotic systems, by which I mean the full automation of their decision processes, raises difficulties and also paradoxes that are not easy to solve. This is especially so when considering the autonomy of those robotic systems in their decision processes alongside their reliability. Finally, I would like to show how difficult it is to respond to these difficulties and paradoxes by calling into play a strong formulation of the precautionary principle. (shrink)

Robot ethics encompasses ethical questions about how humans should design, deploy, and treat robots; machine morality encompasses questions about what moral capacities a robot should have and how these capacities could be computationally implemented. Publications on both of these topics have doubled twice in the past 10 years but have often remained separate from one another. In an attempt to better integrate the two, I offer a framework for what a morally competent robot would look like and discuss a (...) number of ethical questions about the design, use, and treatment of such moral robots in society. Instead of searching for a fixed set of criteria of a robot’s moral competence I identify the multiple elements that make up human moral competence and probe the possibility of designing robots that have one or more of these human elements, which include: moral vocabulary; a system of norms; moral cognition and affect; moral decision making and action; moral communication. Juxtaposing empirical research, philosophical debates, and computational challenges, this article adopts an optimistic perspective: if robotic design truly commits to building morally competent robots, then those robots could be trustworthy and productive partners, caretakers, educators, and members of the human community. Moral competence does not resolve all ethical concerns over robots in society, but it may be a prerequisite to resolve at least some of them. (shrink)

The rapidly changing field of genetics affects society through advances in health-care and through implications of genetic research. This study addresses the impacts of new genetic discoveries and technologies on different segments of today's society. The book begins with a chapter on genetic complexity, and subsequent chapters discuss moral and ethical questions arising from today's genetics from the perspectives of health care professionals, the media, the general public, special interest groups and commercial interests.