Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Discussing Asimov's laws of robotics and a draft revision

This is me discussing robot ethics with Dallas Campbell for BBC1's Bang Goes The Theory. I outline the five new ethical principles for roboticists proposed by the EPSRC/AHRC working group. Click here for the working group's full report, including a commentary on these draft proposals.



With thanks to Simon Mackie, senior content producer for the Bang Goes The Theory website, for the code to embed this video clip.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent interview Alan and nice to see some sound sense regarding robotics going out on the BBC.
    On the question of ethics, I was interested to know where you stand on the notion that robots are set to take jobs & cause further unemployment. Are there ethical spaces out there for robots where this will not happen? - Wasn't this also the unfounded belief of computers!

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  2. Thank you for your comment and kind words.

    On the question of jobs - I think that you have raised a deeply problematical question. It's something of an elephant-in-the-room in robotics. My view that that it's nonsense to pretend that robots don't replace jobs - we only need to look at a car assembly line for evidence of that. But at the same time robotics is creating new jobs - some would argue by creating a whole new industry sector. But the hard question (which I don't pretend to have an answer for) is what is the net effect - the balance of job loss and job creation.

    Many thanks,
    Alan

    ps. Great blog!

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