Susan Leigh Anderson

Asimov’s “three laws of robotics” and machine metaethics

Using Asimov’s “Bicentennial Man” as a springboard, a number of metaethical issues concerning the emerging field of machine ethics are discussed. Although the ultimate goal of machine ethics is to create autonomous ethical machines, this presents a number of challenges. A good way to begin the task of making ethics computable is to create a program that enables a machine to act an ethical advisor to human beings. This project, unlike creating an autonomous ethical machine, will not require that we make a judgment about the ethical status of the machine itself, a judgment that will be particularly difficult to make. Finally, it is argued that Asimov’s “three laws of robotics” are an unsatisfactory basis for machine ethics, regardless of the status of the machine.

The status of machine ethics: a report from the AAAI Symposium

This paper is a summary and evaluation of work presented at the AAAI 2005 Fall Symposium on Machine Ethics that brought together participants from the fields of Computer Science and Philosophy to the end of clarifying the nature of this newly emerging field and discussing different approaches one could take towards realizing the ultimate goal of creating an ethical machine.

Toward ensuring ethical behavior from autonomous systems: a case-supported principle-based paradigm

Purpose – This paper aims to propose a paradigm of case-supported principle-based behavior (CPB) to help ensure ethical behavior of autonomous machines. The requirements, methods, implementation and evaluation components of the CPB paradigm are detailed. Design/methodology/approach – The authors argue that ethically significant behavior of autonomous systems can be guided by explicit ethical principles abstracted from a consensus of ethicists. Particular cases of ethical dilemmas where ethicists agree on the ethically relevant features and the right course of action are used to help discover principles needed for ethical guidance of the behavior of autonomous systems. Findings – Such a consensus, along with its corresponding principle, is likely to emerge in many areas in which autonomous systems are apt to be deployed and for the actions they are liable to undertake, as we are more likely to agree on how machines ought to treat us than on how human beings ought to treat one another. Practical implication...

Ethical Healthcare Agents

We have combined a bottom-up casuistry approach with a top-down implementation of an ethical theory to develop a system that uses machine-learning to abstract relationships between prima facie ethical duties from cases of particular types of ethical dilemmas where ethicists are in agreement as to the correct action. This system has discovered a novel ethical principle that governs decisions in a particular type of dilemma that involves three potentially conflicting prima facie duties. We describe two prototype systems in the domain of healthcare that use this principle, one that advises human beings as to the ethically correct action in specific cases of this type of dilemma and the other that uses this principle to guide its own behavior, making it what we believe may be the first explicit ethical agent.

Guest Editors' Introduction: Machine Ethics

Machine ethics is concerned with how machines behave toward human users and other machines. It aims to create a machine thats guided by an acceptable ethical principle or set of principles in the decisions it makes about possible courses of action it could take. As ethics experts continue to progress toward consensus concerning the right way to behave in ethical dilemmas, the task for those working in machine ethics is to codify these insights. Eight articles in this special issue address the issues.This article is part of a special issue on Machine Ethics.

Teaching Today's Students how to Examine Ethical Issues and Be More Actively Involved in the Learning Process

In response to the difficulty of teaching an increasingly large number of students who are ill prepared for the sort of abstract thinking and well-structured essay writing that are essential to the field of Philosophy, I have discovered a five-step method for teaching students in my “Philosophy and Social Ethics” course how to examine any ethical issue and write well-structured essays discussing the issue. Just as important, students are now required to take more responsibility for the learning process which, I believe, is an appropriate goal for a course in Ethics.

Towards a Principle-Based Healthcare Agent

To feel comfortable allowing healthcare robots to interact with human beings, we must ensure that they act in an ethically responsible manner, following an acceptable ethical principle(s). Giving robots ethical principles to guide their behavior results in their being ethical agents; yet we argue that it is the human designers, not the robots, who should be held responsible for their actions. Towards the end of designing ethical autonomous robots that function in the domain of healthcare, we have developed a method, through an automated dialogue with an ethicist, for discovering the ethically relevant features of possible actions that could be taken by a robot, with an appropriate range of intensities, prima facie duties to either maximize or minimize those features, as well as decision principles that should be used to guide its behavior. Our vision of how an ethical robot assistant would behave demonstrates that an ethical principle is used to select the best action at each moment, rather than just determine whether a particular action is acceptable or not. Further, we maintain that machine ethics research gives us a fresh perspective on ethics. We believe that there is a good chance that this research may lead to surprising new insights, and therefore breakthroughs, in ethical theory.

Case-Supported Principle-Based Behavior Paradigm

We assert that ethical decision-making is, to a degree, computable. Some claim that no actions can be said to be ethically correct because all value judgments are relative either to societies or individuals. We maintain, however, along with most ethicists, that there is agreement on the ethically relevant features in many particular cases of ethical dilemmas and on the right course of action in those cases. Just as stories of disasters often overshadow positive stories in the news, so difficult ethical issues are often the subject of discussion rather than those that have been resolved, making it seem as if there is no consensus in ethics. Although, admittedly, a consensus of ethicists may not exist for a number of domains and actions, such a consensus is likely to emerge in many areas in which intelligent autonomous systems are likely to be deployed and for the actions they are likely to undertake.

Do We Ever Have a Duty to Die

Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous violinist analogy to justify a woman’s right to abort an unintended pregnancy may not have succeeded in its primary aim, since it can be argued that she did not properly distinguish between killing and not saving someone’s life, but it is very useful to use as a starting point in exploring the issue of whether we ever have a duty to die. In this chapter I consider this well-known case from a different perspective, as well as five other cases. In each of the six cases, it might be said that a person has a duty to die. I use these cases to explore our intuitions on this subject and, at the end, I draw some conclusions about whether one could conceivably ever have a duty to die.

Ethical Issues and Artificial Intelligence Technologies in Behavioral and Mental Health Care

This chapter discusses ethics involved with the use of artificial intelligent technologies in behavioral and mental health care. A foundational overview of medical ethics and current ethical codes and guidelines that pertain to the use of technology is provided. Emerging ethical issues are then discussed along with specific recommendations to address these issues. Novel approaches to help with the design and testing of intelligent autonomous care providers, including methods for developing ethical principles and decision-making processes for autonomous artificial agents, are presented.