Audio Responses to Robotics and Ethics Questions from Leading Thinkers

(requires Real Audio player and sound capabilities)

Topic 1

If in the future machines have the ability to reason, be self-aware and have feelings, then what makes a human being a human being, and a robot a robot?  

To include this page on a Works Cited page, use the following entry:

Shanks, Tom. Machines and Man: Ethics and Robotics in the 21st Century. 2000. The Tech Museum of Innovation. [date accessed]. <http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/robotics/ethics/question1.html>

Replace [date accessed] in the above entry with the date you visited the site.

Topic 2

If you could have a robot that would do any task you like, a companion to do all the work that you'd prefer not to, would you? If not, why not?  And if so, how do you think this might affect you as a person?  

To include this page on a Works Cited page, use the following entry:

Shanks, Tom. Machines and Man: Ethics and Robotics in the 21st Century. 2000. The Tech Museum of Innovation. [date accessed]. <http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/robotics/ethics/question2.html>

Replace [date accessed] in the above entry with the date you visited the site.

Topic 3

Are there any kinds of robots that shouldn't be created? Or that you wouldn't want to see created? Why?

To include this page on a Works Cited page, use the following entry:

Shanks, Tom. Machines and Man: Ethics and Robotics in the 21st Century. 2000. The Tech Museum of Innovation. [date accessed]. <http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/robotics/ethics/question3.html>

Replace [date accessed] in the above entry with the date you visited the site.

Topic 4

Automation and the development of new technologies like robotics is viewed by most people as inevitable. But many workers who lose their jobs consider this business practice unfair. Do you think the development of new technologies, and their implementation, is inevitable? What, if anything, should we as a society do for those people who lose their jobs?

To include this page on a Works Cited page, use the following entry:

Shanks, Tom. Machines and Man: Ethics and Robotics in the 21st Century. 2000. The Tech Museum of Innovation. [date accessed]. <http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/robotics/ethics/question4.html>

Replace [date accessed] in the above entry with the date you visited the site.

General Discussions of Robotics and Ethics

Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics courtesy the Robotics Research Group at the University of Texas at Austin (plus some robot history)

Robots and the Rest of Us by Bruce Sterling. From Wired Magazine.

The Social Impact of Artificial Intelligence. By Margaret A. Boden. From the book: The Age of Intelligent Machines (ed. Kurzweil, Raymond. 1990. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press).

Our Concept of Ourselves. By Raymond Kurzweil (1990). From The Age of Intelligent Machines, ed. Kurzweil, R., 447-449. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

A Few Discussions on Robotics and Ethics

If you kick a robotic dog, is it wrong? By G. Jeffrey MacDonald. The Christian Science Monitor. February 5, 2004

Sentience: The next moral dilemma. By Richard Barry. ZDNet UK. January 24, 2001.

Humans and their Machines. NPR Science Friday (April 26, 2002). Listen to Ira Flatow, anchor of Talk Of The Nation: Science Friday, interview Rodney Brooks, Anne Foerst, and Richard Powers.

Humanoids With Attitude - Japan Embraces New Generation of Robots. By Anthony Faiola, with Akiko Yamamoto. Washington Post (March 11, 2005.)

Ethics for the Robot Age - Should bots carry weapons? Should they win patents? Questions we must answer as automation advances. View by Jordan Pollack. Wired Magazine (January 2005; Issue 13.01).