IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2013 - 20

TC SPOTLIGHT

What Is Robot Ethics?
by Matthias Scheutz

R

obot ethics is a growing
interdisciplinary research effort
roughly in the intersection of
applied ethics and robotics with
the aim of understanding the ethical
implications and consequences of
robotic technology. This article argues
that the best approach to robot ethics
addresses researchers, theorists, and
scholars from areas as diverse as
robotics, computer science, psychology,
law, philosophy, and others. Many areas
of robotics are impacted, especially
those where robots interact with
humans, ranging from elder care and
medical robotics, to robots for various
search and rescue missions, including
military robots, to all kinds of service
and entertainment robots. While
military robots were initially a main
focus of the discussion (e.g., whether
and when autonomous robots should
be allowed to use lethal force or to make
those decisions autonomously, etc.), in
recent years, the impact of other types
of robots, in particular social robots, has
become an increasingly important topic
as well (see the various articles in [2]).
Consider, for example, robot R supporting an elder person P who just had
a very bad night and is in agonizing
pain. Since R has a goal to minimize
P's pain, it asks whether it could help P
find a more comfortable position in
bed, but P asks for pain medication
instead. R has an obligation to consult
with P's remote human supervisor
before giving P any medication, but
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2013.2283184
Date of publication: 6 December 2013

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repeated attempts to contact the supervisor fail. What should R do? Leave P
in pain or give P the pain medication
(e.g., because it knows that in P's case
taking pain medication is inconsequential). What would a human health-care
provider do? This is one of many possible, even likely, scenarios where future
autonomous robots with (limited) decision-making capabilities might find
moral dilemmas in social situations: no
matter what they do, they are likely to
cause humans pain and suffering. The
question then becomes how such robots
should react, whether they should be
allowed to override rules, be capable of
employing moral emotions (such as
empathy), and be capable of some general ethical understanding (based on
some ethical theory) that can guide
their reasoning, decision-making, and
ultimately, justifications of their decisions and actions.
Research Challenges
Robot ethics is a nascent interdisciplinary field, and none of the questions
raised above have been answered conclusively yet. In fact, the field has yet to
develop its own integrated methodology. While there have been an increasing number of research publications on
this topic, especially from the philosophy and robotics communities, that
discuss ethical questions related to
robot technology from different perspectives, we started to see more
attempts to employ empirical methods
to evaluate human attitudes and judgments about autonomous robots in
ethical contexts in recent periods (e.g.,

DECEMBER 2013

[1]). There is a clear trend toward
applying more integrated methods and
empirical studies (in addition to conceptual analysis) for determining the
possible effects autonomous robots can
have on humans. This will be a critical
direction for forthcoming research.
Similarly, it will be significant to investigate computational architectures
for autonomous robots that integrate
techniques for ethical reasoning and
decision-making (e.g., from machine
ethics) to constrain the robot's actions
and behaviors (e.g., to prevent it from
performing actions that in a given context are impermissible). On the science
side, we will have to thoroughly answer
the questions about the human impact,
both at the individual and societal levels, of robot technology. And on the
technology side, we have to develop
algorithms that minimize the potential
hazard robots can cause, especially as
automation is moving forward rapidly,
and mobile autonomous robots are
increasingly being deployed (e.g., from
self-driving vehicles for agriculture
to toys).
Recent Activities in Robot
Ethics Organized by the TC
The Technical Committee (TC) on
Robot Ethics aims to provide the IEEE
Robotics and Automation Society
(RAS) with a framework for raising and
addressing the urgent ethical questions
prompted by and associated with robotics research and technology. Ever since
(continued on p. 165)
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - December 2013
