Psychopathic Robots?

"If you build artificial intelligence but don’t think about its moral sense or create a conscious sense that feels regret for doing something wrong, then technically it is a psychopath." Such is the opinion of Josh Hall, who wrote the book "Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of a Machine." Throughout this discussion of bionics, we have only briefly mentioned the ethical issues that surround the topic and the research that could potentially make advanced bionics possible. As the last blog of the semester, it seems appropriate to dedicate some time to "robo-ethics."

Although the aid of robots have been unparalleled in many circumstances where the risk to a human would be too great, it has resulted in the death of humans. Two years ago, for example, a military robot in the South African army killed nine soldiers. This was, of course, a malfunction and not a result of the robot taking control of free will, but nevertheless, it forces us to question how to what extent are willing to trust such robots with our lives or the lives of others. In a Swedish factory, a robot machine injured one of the workers. Although this was attributed partly to "operator error," the factory was still held responsible and forced to pay a fine for the injury of its worker.

Asmiov's Three Laws of Robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or allow one to come to harm
2. A robot must obey orders given by human beings
3. A robot must protect its own existence

Each of these laws take precedence over the following one. For example, a robot may not injure a human being, even if it is ordered to do so. It must obey law #1 over law #2. What becomes interesting then is law # 3: "a robot must protect its own existence." This means that if ordered to obey law #2, it must unconditionally follow any ordered given by any human being, even if it results in its own destruction. This brings up something that I had not considered in the first bog, when we were discussing what it means to be "human." Perhaps we should add a sense of self-preservation to the list we had originally compiled. In this case, if we strictly follow these 3 laws for the safety of humans in a world where robots are becoming more and more advanced, it seems that these robots could never truly behave in a human fashion as long as they are willing to follow orders over the preservation of their own "lives."

Chien Hsun Chen and Yueh-Hsuan Weng recently coauthored a very interesting paper, which was published in the International Journal of Social Robotics. It can be found here: http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=weng_yueh_hsuan. It attempts to provide solutions and guidelines to all of these ethical robotic dilemmas. For example, develop a set of guidelines for the punish of a robot and the creation of what they call a ”legal machine language” to help police future bionic bots. They explain that it is important to distinguish who takes the credit or the blame for the performance of a robot. In the example of the Swedish factory mention earlier, the factory was held responsible for the actions of the machine, even though the malfunction was attributed in part to faulty operation by the user. This reflects a general notion today: if you build a robot, you are responsible for the actions (good or bad) of that robot. But what if the robot was complex enough to make its own decision. In that case, the creator of the robot would be very much like a mother or father: you raise your kids as well as you can, and then hope that they make the right decisions. A parent does not go to jail if their son or daughter commit murder. Should this be the case with the creator of a robot that is able to make its own independent decisions?

In the paper, Chen states that a "human-robot co-existence society" could be possible as early as 2030. If he is correct, this co-existence would happen during our lifetime. As far away as a completely automated human robot may seem, there is more evidence of our quick advances than we may recognize. Looking though UM's own Miami Magazine, the topic of bionics and research toward that goal can be easily found. An article title "Differently Enabled" tells readers of the No Barriers Festival that took place at UM this past June. This event was part of the Clinton Global Initiative at UM. The BrainPort, which turns a video image into electrical impulses that are sent to the brain via the tongue, among many other new technologies were showcased at this event.