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Karla Vivanco
Professor Theresa Simonsen
ENGL -1010 -009
August 4, 2015
Machine Ethics
Since the birth of the concept of robots, the ethical concerns about the benefits and/or
dangers of intelligent machines among us have become a more important discussion.
In 1950 Alan Turing published a landmark paper in which he speculated about the possibility of
creating machines that think, this document know as “The Turing Test” was the first serious
proposal in the philosophy of artificial intelligence. In February 2011, IBM's Watson beat
champions of the sophisticated language game Jeopardy; this event was transmitted live on TV.
Since then, IBM has increased the possibilities of their system to numerous applications
including the medical field. From self-driving cars and friendly robots and pets to the next
United States Army’s future combat system. It is clear that machines such as these are already
raising concerns in our society. Multiple points of view will diverge whether there is no place on
this modern era to restrict investigation in artificial intelligence or to relinquish dangerous
technologies before is too late for humanity, therefore the importance of machine ethics.
As many experts and researchers in the field have argued, that sometime in this century
real artificial intelligence will be discovered and it could become so vastly more powerful than
humans that we would not be able to control it. It's very risky to program superhuman (robot) to
do something you think you want. Because superhuman with artificial intelligence and other
powerful technologies may pose some risk of human extinction. In fact, many leaders and
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experts in the field have already given their opinion and concerns because future behavior is
intrinsically unpredictable. (Luke Muehlhauser).
As Patrick Lin says that government institutions will always be interested in military
advancements. Military Robotics can be used to help on the battlefield and especially in
dangerous areas like diffusing bombs etc. This robot could take the command of a human as an
assistant. On the other hand there is a human risk for society to fall into a “policy vacuum”
where the technology advancements in robotics will surpass the ethics. Because of the
inadequate regulations over robotics, there will be a risk of public backslash against overall
technology advancements this will likely to put artificial intelligence research at stake.
Nevertheless, the Machine Intelligence Research institute (MIRI) has proposed a research
guide for scientists to follow and help build a friendly AI future where all technology advances
must be considered safe and humane. As a result of the investigation realized for multiple
institutions its predicted that machines will reach human-level intelligence by 2030, if this ever
happens we can be assured that there will be well established protocols by that time in the future.
The objective is to make artificial agents smarter than human but safe and robust.
Given the importance of machine ethics to help shape the future of humanity and
robotics, we also need politics and leaders to become more involved on the subject. AI
researchers working with ethicists and lawmakers might find an answer to the problem and
consequently the ability to decide whether a robot will gain rights and have moral responsibility
over their acts. (MIRI)
We live in an age of increasingly smart machines. It is my belief AI is a powerful
technology. A powerful technology can be used for good things like curing disease, improving
road safety and treatments, and also could be use for bad things like killing people. Powerful
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technology, it must be handled with care. There should be laws and treaties to prevent its
corruption. But the dangers of AI robots taking over the world and killing us all is both
extremely unlikely and very far in the future. However, I have a hard time believing an AI will
want to destroy humanity and as much as I take the long-term risk of AI.
Andre Forni says that our life’s in the future will strongly depend of machines. Every
important decision will be accompanied by a machine interpretation; on the other hand this is
more likely to affect humans in their social behavior and roles in the society. For this reason, the
anticipated human-robot interaction and acceptance will likely to trigger public awareness of
machine ethics, anthropomorphism of robotics and dehumanization. Although, there is a big part
of the human population that fear robots because they have prove to do trivial or repetitive tasks
better than humans, the true is that robotics are already creating new jobs and employment will
become more specialized.
The technological advancements in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence is not the first
field to face a growing challenge, it shares ethical problems with other fields of science and
technology most of them are derived from the Second and Third Industrial Revolutions. Given
the huge potentials of robotics and AI to help humankind on its evolution. Foremost is the need
for a dialogue between ethicists and researchers in Artificial Intelligence. Both parties will
benefit from this cooperation. Perhaps ethicists will even learn from machines and discover the
fundamental principles of ethics, while AI researchers, will some day convince the general
public that ethical machines can be created, machines that might serve to improve the lives of
human beings forever.
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Bibliography
 Alan Turing, “The Turing Test” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. First April 9,
2003; substantive revision Wed Jan 26, 2011. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/
 Andrea Forni, “Robots. The New Era. Living, working and investing in the robotics
society of the future” 2015.
https://books.google.com/books?id=R1ksBgAAQBAJ&dq=robots+society&source=gbs_
navlinks_s
In this eBook, the author describes how our lives will be in the future when robots will
become part of the human society. The content is based on how humanity will accept or
reject robots on their daily life, also it mention the current efforts to bring down the
barrier and rejection for autonomous robots taking importance in other aspects of human
life, like jobs, services and industrial sectors. It also discusses the importance of the
government and politics on shaping the ethical and cultural factors that will surround us
in the future. Although, there is a big part of the human population that fear robots
because they have prove to do trivial or repetitive tasks better than humans, the true is
that robotics are already creating new jobs and employment will become more
specialized. In my personal opinion, I believe this will help humanity to evolve even
more and focus our specie to figure different ways to colonize the space and survive the
future challenges of human overpopulation.
 Bianca Bosker “Google's New A.I. Ethics Board Might Save Humanity From
Extinction.” HUFF POST TECH, January 30, 2014.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/29/google-ai_n_4683343.html
 George A. Bekey “Robots Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics”
Book, December 9, 2011
 Hakli, Raul, Norskov, Marco, Seibt, Johanna “Sociable Robots and Future of Social
Relations” In Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, Press 2014.
http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=40c1547e-5438-4814-a896fbfb36746c07@sessionmgr4002&vid=26#AN=939645&db=nlebk
The author discusses many pragmatic approaches for the potential for robots to
assist humans in many different domains, from healthcare, education and
manufacturing and beyond with implications to social ontology and normativity
over robots. He describes how humanity will be more open and willing to rely on
robots and how robots will gain commitment, what would be their social
functions and their roles in society. Otherwise, the philosophical look at what is
called the “uncanny valley” where the humans will experience an strange feeling
of “unnaturalness” as they interact more and more with robots carefully designed
to look human
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 Illah Nourbakhsh. “Google’s Robot Army” The New Yorker, December 16, 2103
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/googles-robot-army
In this Article Illah Nourbakhsh talks about the new generation with robots. They’re
some creations already like Cheetah that can run fast a 44.7 km/h. With this being said,
the author is worried about something he calls “robot smog”, he came across this term
base on his thoughts related to human robot interaction, how society is not ready to
interact non humans being on a daily basis even the government has very non specific
laws for this upcoming human interaction. One of the things that he is concerned is the
personal data privacy. Now days, people are used to interact with machines in their own
terms like basically the human tells the machine what to do, like way we interact with our
phones, TV, DVD, etc. We do not know how to interact autonomous machine that no
longer waits for our decision.
 Louise Aronson. “The Future of Robots Caregivers.” The New York Times. July 19,
2014.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/the-future-of-robotcaregivers.html?_r=0
In this article Louise Aronson is either a Nurse or a Doctor who is worried about the
older Americans. As Doctor she can give solution for a pain or any disease that the
patient can have. But as a Doctor or Nurse or even a CNA person cannot be there with
her or him for a prolonged time. As a normal Human of any age, an older adult also needs
companion and care everyday. Because it is old, it needs care 24 hours. Caregiver is a
heavy work; a job that not many people wants to do it, for their love ones. That’s why
older human needs a Robot Caregiver. A Robot who help lifting and moving is not
enough to older people, also have to be a nice companion who talks and listen to their
needs. Robots could help to avoid accidentals and abuse from humans who are guilty.
 Luke Muehlhauser “Machine Intelligence Research Institute” “Intelligence explosion
FAQ”
MIRI 2015
“Intelligence Explosion FAQ” https://intelligence.org/ie-faq/
 Luke Muehlhauser, Louie Helm. "Intelligence Explosion and Machine Ethics". In
Singularity Hypotheses: A Scientific and Philosophical Assessment, edited by Amnon
Eden, Johnny Søraker, James H. Moor, and Eric Steinhart. Berlin: Springer. 2012
https://intelligence.org/files/IE-ME.pdf
 (1)Patric Lin. “Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics” The
Center for Internet and Society, December 15, 2010.
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http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzQxNDIzOF9f
QU41?sid=40c1547e-5438-4814-a896fbfb36746c07@sessionmgr4002&vid=24&format=EB&lpid=lp_299&rid=0
In this book, the authors discuss the different areas where robotics are questioned.
One of the most remarkable discussions take place in what he calls the robot
ethics and the turing triage test, where he compares the life of a human patient
versus the life of a robot, in this scenario the person, who need to make the
decision to either save the human or the robot, have a moral dilemma, based on
the fact that humans some day in the future will be able to overcome the current
challenges for artificial intelligence and will succeed in the creation of a genuine
artificial intelligence. Also, they ask the audience to determine when a machine or
computer will gain rights and be threated like a human being. He also pointed out
the term “robot slavery” where he formulates a question if is morally permissible
to enforce or reject the servitude on robots. Nevertheless, the discussion that takes
place in the chapter named after “Psychology and sex”, where the
anthropomorphization of robots is an important topic not only for privacy
implications but for the increasing public acceptance, even affinity towards robots
will make people in the future to fall in love with robots. Also, one of the trending
ideas of the future is the widely accepted term for “sexbots” that will soon replace
or become an alternative to human sex workers, this thought leave us with a
unanswered question, how such use affects other human intimate relationships
and if this would ever be considered infidelity.
 (2)Patrick Lin, “ROBOTS, ETHICS & WAR” The Center for Internet and Society,
December 15, 2010.
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2010/12/robots-ethics-war
In this article, the author talks about robots and their military usage and how ethics are
always behind in technology compared to the military. Furthermore, the discussion takes
place in how society will accept or reject human enhancement through technology and
robotics, where terms like cyborgs are common after seeing in these days advanced
prosthetics such a bionic knee, again, human and robotics will serve the same goal of
creating a better warfighter for the military interest and purposes.
One of the remarkable examples cited is the human genome project, where the slowness
of the ethics conducted the humanity to fall into a “policy vacuum” where it took almost
eighteen (18) years for the US congress to finally pass a bill to protect citizens from
discrimination based on their genetic information. It is pretty clear that most of the
technologies advancements are being used for military purposes and there is always the
risk of public backslash against their usage.
 Tanya Lewis “Jeopardy! Winning Computer Now Crunching Data for Science.” Live
Science. August 2014
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Self – Assessment
My first goal on this class was to learn the right process and structure of a Rhetorical writing
essay. I was to be able to participate on class, interacting and making critical reviews in peer
reviews with different classmates and this exercise help me a lot to heard different opinions. I
also was be able to write a reflection and developed a better writing through many revisions,
understanding myself as a writer and thinker. I definitely approached my goal on this class;
EGL-1010 was a challenge for myself. This last essay it was a tough topic, I have realized that I
choosed an extended topic, hard to be able to write just about one or two main ideas. Even
though its was a challenge researching on this topic, because there are so many subjects to talk
about Artificial Intelligence that included technology to be more understandable on my writing
examples of the technology advances. About my topic, it has been occurring so many advances
on the technology through the last years. So many projects and plan to our future to a better
future, superhuman knows as AI can be beneficial in many ways to the humanity from helping to
our older people and help on military wars or even just teaching on schools. But there is always a
scary side of AI because as they will be able to take their own decision in the future that will be a
major difference to us the humans.