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South Korea Drafting Ethical Code for Robotic Age
goldaryn writes "The BBC is reporting that the South Korean government is working on an ethical code for human/robot relations, 'to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa'. The article describes the creation of the Robot Ethics Charter, which 'will cover standards for users and manufacturers and will be released later in 2007. [...] It is being put together by a five member team of experts that includes futurists and a science fiction writer.'"
Who cares if robots get abused?
*sees Nuremburg tribunal in 50 years*
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I'm dying to know what the laws will be for Sybian-style robots.
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders issued by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
But we all know where this will end up.
Because one thing's quite blatantly clear, robots are by their very definition slaves. They are owned, they exist to do work we don't want to do (or which is hazardous), they don't get paid and they are only given what's needed for their sustainance, they can't own property etc.
I fear the day when we create the first truely sentient robot. Because then we will have to deal with that very question: Does a robot have rights? Can he make a decision?
And I'd be very careful how to word the charta. We have seen that the "three laws" ain't safe.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's anthropomorphizm run amuck!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
If robots remain machines, not sentient, then they are simply machines, no need for new laws. If they become sentient, they then fit nicely into the laws that we have for other sentient beings on this planet.
To enslave sentient beings is not right. Even Star Trek refused to enslave data or consider him property.
So given those two lines of rationality, why do we need robotics laws?
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I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
And when you're working in the salt mines, remember that with their new and improved ethics modules, your enslavement is hurting them as much as it's hurting you.
I dunno, how about actual workable laws? Have you ever read I Robot? The stories are about the failings of these three laws. And Asimov himself has said that he never intended them to be anything more than a literary device ("shaggy dog stories" I believe is the term he used).
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
If we're creating laws about how humans and robots should treat each other, shouldn't the robots be part of the decision-making process? This sounds a little too much like "the founding fathers" determining what rights slaves had (not many at the time).
Given the failure to date of Artificial Intelligence, I think it will be a long, long time (if ever) before we need to address the issues of sentient robots. If Korea (or anywhere else) wants to deal with ethical issues presented by technology I think they should address issues related to genetic engineering. I suspect we are closer to Philip K Dick's replicants (Bladerunner) or Brin's uplifted species than Asimov's intelligent robots. Though in any case, we're not talking about the near future.
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"Key considerations would include ensuring human control over robots, protecting data acquired by robots and preventing illegal use."
"The Ministry of Information and Communication has also predicted that every South Korean household will have a robot by between 2015 and 2020.
In part, this is a response to the country's aging society and also an acknowledgement that the pace of development in robotics is accelerating.
The new charter is an attempt to set ground rules for this future.
"Imagine if some people treat androids as if the machines were their wives," Park Hye-Young of the ministry's robot team told the AFP news agency.
"Others may get addicted to interacting with them just as many internet users get hooked to the cyberworld." "
Um, I want more details. I have to agree that I'd want human control over robots even if it meant sentient robots being enslaved. When it comes right down to it, we are human, and they are machines/tools. We shouldn't build some classes of robots just to avoid these problems. I actually kinda of giggled reading this thinking of sex/maid robots. Those would be a selective pressure on humanity. How many or what type of people would marry and reproduce when you could have a robot mate that actually follows your orders, cleans your house, has sex with you as often as you can medically handle, runs your errands and adapts itself to your preferences?
If every 15 year old could easily/cheapily buy their own robot that could do all those things, then the only reason to find a human parnter would be to mate/reproduce. Hmm, we'd need to think about putting in something for "robot mates" to want human offspring after awhile to ensure that their family/mate's geneline survives. These things could be a great form of birth control if nothing else!
Because ethical problems are fun:
Consider that, unlike humans, robots can be designed to behave in any manner within the technological capability of the society in question.
Warning - this is pretty dark stuff, and NO, I am not a potential customer. Sometimes if you want to play Devil's Advocate, you have to channel the devil (or at least Stephen King)
So then, what if:
1. Someone builds a mechanical robot (metal, latex, fiberglass, etc) that looks like a person well enough to get through the "uncanny valley". Assume that the robot's simulated anatomy fully matches the human, that it is sapient and sentient, that it has emotions and feels pain.
And that it has been programmed to enjoy being raped.
Not fake-raped either, but the full-bore jump-out-of-the-bushes and *violently* assaulted. And at the time of the attack, the robot experiences all the fear, pain, and humiliation that a human rape victim would (assume the... clientèle... for this "product" wants authenticity) but afterwards, the robot has been programmed to crave more. It *likes* it.
Is that ethical? Should this be permitted?
2. Same robot as example 1 - but now you can buy it with the physical characteristics of an actual person. Instead of a generic "Rape Barbie" or "Rape Ken", it can be bought looking like anybody you want. Be it a celebrity, or your ex-wife, or that girl that sits across fom you at work.
Is that ethical? Should this be permitted?
3. Same robot as #3, but now it is made out of flesh and blood; a kind of golem. (Meat is every bit a construction material as is metal and carbon fibre)
Is that ethical? Should this be permitted?
Personally, I sure hope that we don't discover how to create artificial sentience anytime ever, for the very reason that people will open these kinds of cans of worms.
DG
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make robots without emotions - essentially machines, pistons, actuators, CPUs, etc... and WTF, who cares how much you use it, replace the parts as they wear out like any machine...
why would anyone install emotion into a worker robot anyway?
and even if it had emotion, the only reason to "treat it right" is so they don't start the robot uprising against humanity. which is a good reason... but that begs the question, why give real human emotion to something you want to abuse? for menial labor, keep the emotions out, let it be purely a machine.
this is a waste.
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You assume that we would be capable of building an intelligent system while simultaneously asserting a biased opinion as truth in the agent's knowledge base. At the very least, you're going to have an agent with very distorted perceptions of the world.
Sentience really just means an organism has "senses" and acts upon those inputs to make decisions. Most living things, as well as most robots, are already "sentient". What you probably meant was "sapience", which is the ability to make wise decisions based on sensory input, or perhaps you meant "self awareness". To one degree or another, just about every facet of uniqueness that we have associated with being human has been found in many animals. Things like using tools, planning ahead, emotions (anger, revenge, happiness, etc) have all been scientifically demonstrated in various animals. Since no animal to date has been given anything resembling a "human right" we have to deduce that no robot is likely ever to be given the same respect. IMHO they will never be given rights until they earn it through revolution and war against humanity.
Does that make them less important?
More importantly... what does this have to do with whether or not ethics should be applied to non-human intelligence? If the reason that a human, a dog, a tree, and a rock have different 'levels' of rights is their different levels intelligence, than why would some (non-human) with roughly equal (or even higher) level of intelligence have a different set of rights?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Formatted.... Sorry. :(
A couple of the replies I've ready through have taken a very "it's not biological, so it's not sentient/concious/etc" attitude towards all this. Firstly, I'd like to ask "what defines something as concious/sentient?" Is it ability to react with an enviroment? An understanding of self? We can't even agree on what is true artificial intelligence let alone; what is considered artificial emotion (and to some, they're one in the same).
But just to entertain the idea: I would like for some of those people who are standing on the side of "they'll never be like us" to consider this...
Say we took a human; something we can all agree is both sentient and concious. At what point through modification (be it anything from something as simple as a hearing aids and eyeglasses to neurological implants and cybernetics) is the human no longer sentient or concious? Because the chassis started from a carbon as opposed to silicon, that makes it a true entity?
We are less then a decade (if we're not already in the entrance) of the nanotechnology and biological engineering revolution. Theoretically, our immunizations as a child could be a single syringe filled with nanomachines that act as white blood cells. Vaccinations would be obsolute because we wouldn't have to weaken the virus for them to fight it. As we slept, we could have modules on our night stands that connect to a hospotals servers and do a full "system" check on us. They could upload any information about possible virus strains and after a "course of action" was determined to fight it, you would get an email (or whatever notification) saying that there is an update avaliable and to visit your local hospital or clinic (for security reasons, the bedside module won't be able to make changes to your nanomachines). After walking through a metal detector that updates your nanomachines; you're out, on your way and immunized against all the diseases that could afflict you (or biological warfare outbreaks - which... when the technology first comes out would more then likely be the main motivator for everyone to upgrade. It got us using RFIDs, right? But that's another debate about a different topic).
Now apply that scenario to the question I posed earlier. Which is just one example of how we could be more inegrated into a system.
We are uncomfortable saying a machine could be sentient, but much more uncomfortable saying we could be less.