Robots are no longer the stuff of science fiction writers’ imaginations; they are now, and will increasingly be, a part of our personal and professional lives in the years to come. They are already performing surgical procedures and delivering sheets and medicines throughout the hospital. They are becoming a fixture on the average construction site and helping with agriculture and livestock. They aid in humanitarian efforts to protect endangered species and deliver supplies during natural disasters. Given the often morally charged contexts in which these robots are placed, many researchers believe that certain robots should be endowed with moral reasoning abilities. This would allow the robot to make ethical decisions on its own, without direct input from a human operator. The emerging field of machine ethics is devoted to the question of “moral machines”—namely, can they be done and, if so, how? As moral philosopher Susan Leigh Anderson, one of the field’s pioneers, writes, “the ultimate goal of machine ethics… is to create autonomous ethical machines.” This would mean that your autonomous car will be able to consider who to kill in an emergency: the child crossing the street or the driver in the car? It could also mean that the home care robot will consider the right and wrong of fulfilling your request for an evening brandy when you have already had one and its programming warns of another. In addition to the implications for the human users of these moral machines, there are the broader societal and legal considerations of creating an artificial moral agent in terms of its status in society: as a slave to humans or as a member of our moral community deserving of rights, freedoms and protections? This talk will present the domain of machine ethics; what is it and what are the implications of creating moral machines. The core of this talk will focus on the question of whether or not we should develop moral machines, rather than how we might do so.

Aimee van Wynsberghe, Delft University of Technology, Responsible Robotics Foundation
March 17, 2017

Watch another video of us with Aimee Van Wynsberghe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srg08oTX0l4&t=1860s

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