Ethics for the Robot Age

Posted 12 Jan 2005 at 18:17 UTC by steve

A new Wired article by Jordan Pollack poses a number of ethical questions about robots. Pollack defines robots for his purposes as "any device controlled by software that can work 24/7 and put people out of work. The machines are not intelligent. They cannot comprehend Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics to protect and obey humans before preserving themselves". Among the questions he asks are, "Should robots be humanoid? Should humans become robots? Should robots carry weapons? and should machines be awarded patents?". There is also a Slashdot discussion on the article.