IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2015 - 6

President's Message

On the Ethics of Research and Practice
in Robotics and Automation
By Raja Chatila

esearch in robotics and automation (R&A) has reached
an unprecedented stage of
maturity.
Enabled by increased computing
speed and memory storage, the miniaturization of sensors and actuators, new
materials, and, most importantly, research results in R&A at large, we can
see today that robots and systems are
capable of achieving impressive operational functions in perception, motion
planning, motion
control, manipuAdditional questions
lation, human-
robot interaction,
are raised, mainly
and so on, in a
about self-driving
variety of situations. Full autoncars or certain types
omous operation
of military usage
is possible in
some cases. Of
of robots.
course, a great
amount of research is still necessary to understand
many underlying principles, in decision
making, control, perception, or learning, and to achieve operation in openended situations.
These robots have now come out of
the labs. New applications are booming
in many sectors: transport, services, defense, manufacturing, agriculture, construction, medicine, and health. Many
others are yet to come.
This wealth of applications has made
R&A very visible to governments, the
media, and the general public worldDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2015.2453691
Date of publication: 11 September 2015

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

wide. Questions on ethical,
legal, and societal issues in
the use of robots have
emerged and are becoming
more meaningful to scientists
and engineers as well as the general public. Statements are made, by
specialists and nonspecialists alike,
about the consequences on jobs and the
ethical use of robots but also about robots and artificial intelligence (AI) "taking over the world." And when it comes
to autonomy, additional questions are
raised, mainly about self-driving cars or
certain types of military usage of robots,
e.g., autonomous lethal weapons.
Many of these questions are undoubtedly legitimate, even if they are
often based on misconceptions about
robots and their actual capabilities and
about the state of the art in R&A and AI.
Scientists and engineers engaged in
robotics research have at least a moral
responsibility about the outcome of
their work and sometimes also about
the misconceptions within the public
because of some of their statements.
The R&A community started to reflect
on the question of the ethical implications of robotic technology and of autonomous robots more than ten years
ago, more precisely, in 2002, within
a research atelier funded by the European Robotics Research Network
(EURON). The first workshop was organized by Gianmarco Veruggio and
Fiorella Operto on 30-31 January 2004,
in Villa Nobel, San Remo, Italy. The
same year, the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society established a technical committee on "roboethics." Robot

September 2015

ethics is today an interdisciplinary research area at the
intersection of applied ethics, robotics, and AI. The European Union (EU) funded
several projects in the past ten
years on this issue, and, recently, Robolaw, the conclusions of which were presented before representatives of the EU
Parliament. In some countries, official
ethics committees on robotics research
have been formed [e.g., the French Advisory Commission for the Ethics of
Research in Information Sciences and
Technologies (CERNA) in France,
which addresses more broadly digital
sciences and technologies].
But what exactly is the ethics of research in our area? Like in other areas,
it is to reflect, since the early stage of
research and as applications and technologies get closer to actual usage, on
the consequences of this research and
these developments on our human societies and to consequently make appropriate decisions and take appropriate measures measures according to
our moral standing.
Similarly to physics, our domain
raises many questions about the use of
technologies developed from theories
and about the machines designed after
them. And similarly to biology, R&A
raises profound questions on the very
nature of human beings. The list of
these questions is long. Just to mention
a few: Should robots be allowed to autonomously make decisions that could
knowingly endanger human lives?
What are the consequences of robots
expressing emotions with people who

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2015