Miscellaneous

October 27, 2011
Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Speakers:
Ian Kerr
John O. McGinnis
Lawrence B. Solum
Mary-Anne Williams

Moderator:
Ryan Calo

In the summer of 1956, several key figures in what would become known as the field of "artificial intelligence" met at Dartmouth College to brainstorm about the future of the synthetic mind. Artificial intelligence, broadly defined, has since become a part of everyday life. Although we are still waiting on promises of "strong AI" capable of approximating human thought, the widespread use of artificial intelligence has the potential to reshape medicine, finance, war, and other important aspects of society. The Center for Internet and Society, along with the Stanford Law and Technology Association (SLATA), and the Stanford Technology Law Review (STLR) bring together four scholars who have begun to examine the near term, short term, and long term ramifications of artificial intelligence for law and society. This panel follows up on our Legal Challenges in an Age of Robotics panel from November 2009.

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Obama President based his campaign in the defense of the ethics, what was received very well in the whole world. One of the topics where the ethics is very important is the Robotics.
In 1950, Isaac Asimov, the father of the modern scientific fiction, wrote the book " I robot" where it enunciated the 3 basic laws of the robotics.
1? Law: A robot cannot hurt a human being, or, for omission, allow a human to be hurt.
2? Law: A robot must obey the orders that are given to it by human beings, except in the cases where such orders oppose the First Law.
3? Law: A robot must protect its proper existence since that such protection does not enter in conflict with the First and Second Laws.
We have already seen ethical robots of many types in industrial applications, but now the frightful robots of type HK, hunter-killer, exist. These robots, developed by DARPA, American agency of new military technologies use, now is being equipped with the technology of auto regeneration, that is, when seriously damaged, they have to fix themselves to reach the objective of the mission. Do you remember The Exterminator?
These robots practically fly, kill and are unchangeable. And the worse is that armies of robots of this type will be formed to substitute the human beings.
The statisticians show that many of the veterans of the war of Iraq suffer from a syndrome that perhaps kills more than the war.
It seems that we, human beings, do not accept killing each other anymore, even the enemies. Will the war became a big videogame?
Ronald Arkin, computation scientist, and designer of software for robots of battle of the American army, defends the hypothesis that intelligent robots would be more ethical than human in war.
It is always necessary to remember that this technology can get in wrong hands and therefore it would be important to apply the laws formulated for the scholar and visionary Asimov.
The good news is that the Canadian Le Trung created Aiko, the ideal woman.
She is an android that speaks fluently English and Japanese, knows how to read, to make accounts and to recognize objects.
The inventor confirms that his intention was to get as close as possible to a woman. she doesnt have vacation, she doesnt rest and she can work 24 hours per day.
Aiko, can also react to pain, and, although it is not programmed for this, with the correct software she could even simulate an orgasm, therefore she has sensors in all her body.
Aiko is not metallic she is covered of materials that simulate the human body.
Le Trung says that the most part of the robots was made of metal, as the industrial robots. Because of this we dont have feelings for them.
Conclusion: I miss Amelia!
Serena Ucelli.

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This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. With his extensive knowledge in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, Dr. Mavritis doesn't explore only the future of Human-Robot Interaction and Collective Intelligence, but examines the role of “Ethics” and “Beauty” in the world-to-come.

Dr. Nikolaos Mavridis, PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has taught, written about, designed, and built Intelligent Systems, Robots, and systems exhibiting Collective Intelligence, since his early youth, having served as faculty at NYU and NCSR Demokritos.

He is the founder of IRML (the Interactive Robots and Media Lab), which achieved wide publicity for « Ibn Sina », the world’s first Arabic-Language Android Robot, as well as « FaceBots », Microsoft-award-recipient Social Robots which access info and publish on FaceBook.

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In this London Futurists presentation, Dr Joanna Bryson, Reader in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bath, reviewed a number of key questions about the present and future relationship between humans and robots:
• What is the reality of the current state of development of intelligent robots, and artificial intelligence more generally?
• Do we understand enough about the science of consciousness and ethics to predict or prescribe how the relationship between humans and robots is likely to evolve?
• Which scenarios for the future of robots should worry us most, and which might we seek to accelerate?

The meeting was chaired by David Wood. The camera was operated by Kiran Manam.

Apologies for the quality of the audio. It's best to listen with the volume set low.

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In this lecture titled “On the Ethics of Research in Robotics”, Dr. Raja Chatila shares his reflections on this very current and engaging topic addressing both professionals in the field and the lay public affected by the commercialisation of robotic systems. Today’s robot application has reached an impressive level of capabilities and autonomous operations in sectors ranging from transport, defense, construction to medicine, among many other. The popularisation of robotics in general raises ethical questions within the general society.

Will robots take our jobs? Will AI become completely autonomous and surpass the capabilities of the human mind? What about the application of autonomous lethal weapons acting without being controlled by the human hand?

It is Dr. Chatila’s opinion that roboticists have the duty to educate the wider public on what is really going on with these new, incredibly advanced robotic applications. It is also up to the researchers to understand the consequences of their own research findings and commercialisation of certain robot applications.

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Artificial Intelligence, androids, A.I. -- should the man-made non-organic beings in our not-too distant future get the same civil rights a human should have? Should synthetic people be treated the same? Is that future to be avoided, like Bill Gates and Elon Musk have argued?

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Self-driving cars are already cruising the streets today. And while these cars will ultimately be safer and cleaner than their manual counterparts, they can’t completely avoid accidents altogether. How should the car be programmed if it encounters an unavoidable accident? Patrick Lin navigates the murky ethics of self-driving cars.

Lesson by Patrick Lin, animation by Yukai Du.

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Ensuring Ethical Behavior in Autonomous Systems: A Case-Supported Principle-Based Paradigm

Michael Anderson, Susan Leigh Anderson

University of Hartford, University of Connecticut

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Humans are social animals: starting as babies, we learn through a process of social referencing, observing others and developing a theory of mind, empathy and acculturation. Vanessa Evers, Professor of Human Media Interaction at the University of Twente, discusses how robots can also learn to understand and fit in with our social rules.

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Many people assume that robots would have to be sentient before they could act ethically. Not so, explains Alan Winfield, Director of the Science Communication Unit at the University of the West of England. If a robot can model and predict the consequences of its own and others’ actions, it can be programmed to act in ethical ways.

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If an animal jumps out in front of an autonomous car, how should the car approach the trade-off between saving the animal and endangering the driver? Andrew Moore, Dean of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, describes how such policy questions are now becoming urgent – as is the task of verifying solutions.

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