Keith Abney

Robot ethics: Mapping the issues for a mechanized world

As with other emerging technologies, advanced robotics brings with it new ethical and policy challenges. This paper will describe the flourishing role of robots in society-from security to sex-and survey the numerous ethical and social issues, which we locate in three broad categories: safety & errors, law & ethics, and social impact. We discuss many of these issues in greater detail in our forthcoming edited volume on robot ethics from MIT Press.

Ethics, War, and Robots

There has been a rapid proliferation of the use of robots in warfare in recent years, and the United States military (which accounts for ∼40% of global military spending) has made further roboticization a priority within its research and development program. In this chapter, Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and George Bekey review the state of robots within warfare and survey the wide array of legal and ethical issues raised by them. These include issues related to conducting a just war and determining responsibility for events in war, as well as issues related to the effects of the widespread use of robots on those involved in war and on society more generally. The authors argue that these technologies warrant a great deal more attention than they currently receive, given both the nature of them and the pace at which they are emerging.

Is Warfare the Right Frame for the Cyber Debate

Nation-states are struggling to formulate cyberpolicy, especially against foreign-based intrusions and attacks on domestic computer systems. These incidents are often framed in the context of cyberwarfare, which naturally implies that military organizations should respond to these incidents. This chapter will discuss why cyberwarfare is ethically difficult and why, until responsible cyberpolicy is developed, we may plausibly reframe the problem not as warfare but as private defense, i.e., self-defense by private parties, especially commercial companies, as distinct from a nation-state’s right to self-defense. The distinction between private defense and national defense is relevant, since victims of cyberattacks have been primarily industry targets and not so much government targets, at least with respect to measurable harm. And we focus on foreign-based cyberattacks since, unlike domestic-based attacks that are usually considered to be mere crimes and therefore a matter for domestic law enforcement, foreign-based attacks tend to raise special alarms and panic about more sinister motives. More than a mere criminal act, a foreign cyberattack is often perceived as an aggression so serious that it may plausibly count as an act of war, or casus belli, and so we are quick to invoke national security. But insofar as the state is currently not protecting industry from such cyberattacks—in part because it is difficult to arrive at a sound cyberpolicy—we should consider interim solutions outside the military framework.