moral machines teaching robots right from wrong nov 2008

[...]... sensitivity to morally relevant facts Systems at the low end of these dimensions have only what we call “operational morality”—that is, their moral significance is entirely in the hands of designers and users As machines become more sophisticated, a kind of “functional morality” is technologically possible such that the machines themselves have the capacity for assessing and responding to moral challenges... attention to the need for work on moral machines to begin now, not twenty to a hundred years from now when technology has caught up with science fiction The field of machine morality extends the field of computer ethics beyond concern for what people do with their computers to questions about what the machines do by themselves (In this book we will use the terms ethics and morality interchangeably.) We are... Technology, received funding from the U.S Army in 2007 to begin the development of hardware and software that will make robotic fighting machines capable of following the ethical standards of warfare These rather extensive guidelines, honored by civilized nations, range from the rights of noncombatants to the rights of enemy soldiers trying to surrender However, ensuring that robots follow the ethical... demand the benefits that these technologies can provide Thus, it 6 moral machines is incumbent on anyone with a stake in this technology to address head-on the task of implementing moral decision making in computers, robots, and virtual “bots” within computer networks As noted, this book is not about the horrors of technology Yes, the machines are coming Yes, their existence will have unintended effects... early to be broaching this topic? We don’t think so Industrial robots engaged in repetitive mechanical tasks have caused injury and even death The demand for home and service robots is projected to create a worldwide market double that of industrial robots by 2010, and four times bigger by 2025 With the advent of home and service robots, robots are no longer confined to controlled industrial environments... of intelligence that humans create 8 moral machines Just as AI has stimulated new lines of enquiry in the philosophy of mind, machine morality has the potential to stimulate new lines of enquiry in ethics Robotics and AI laboratories could become experimental centers for testing theories of moral decision making in artificial systems Three questions emerge naturally from the discussion so far Does the... will increase as such machines become more fully autonomous Even if the coming calamity does not kill as many people as the terrorist acts of 9/11, it will provoke a comparably broad range of political responses These responses will range from calls for more to be spent on improving the technology, to calls for an outright ban on the technology (if not an outright “war against robots ) A concern for... we begin by discussing the issue of whether a “mere” machine can be a moral agent We take the instrumental approach that while fullblown moral agency may be beyond the current or future technology, there is nevertheless much space between operational morality and “genuine” moral agency This is the niche we identified as functional morality in chapter 2 The goal of chapter 4 is to address the suitability... properly answered without better understanding what is possible in the domain of artificial morality It is easy to argue from a position of ignorance that the goal of artificial moral agency is impossible to achieve But precisely what are the challenges 14 mora l machines and obstacles for implementing artificial morality? There is a need for serious discussion of this question The computer revolution... even have the potential to surprise its programmers with apparently novel or creative solutions to ethical challenges Perhaps even the most sophisticated AMAs will never really be moral agents in the same sense that human beings are moral agents But wherever one comes down on the question of whether a machine can be genuinely 16 moral machines ethical (or even genuinely autonomous), an engineering challenge .