March 9, 2007...11:10 pm
Exciting Experiments in Ethics: Korean Robot Edition
“In the 21st Century humanity will coexist with the first alien intelligence we have ever come into contact with - robots…
It will be an event rich in ethical, social and economic problems.”
South Korea is approaching a future in which robots will be commonplace.
every South Korean household will have a robot by between 2015 and 2020.
Hoping to head off any Matrix-like situations before they come to pass, some folks are developing an ethical protocol for human/robot interactions, which will in all likelihood go some pretty strange places:
“Imagine if some people treat androids as if the machines were their wives,” Park Hye-Young of the ministry’s robot team told the AFP news agency.
Wow.
I can’t think what that might be like for the men, but the image of thousands of women, cheering and thronging the streets of Seoul is extremely vivid.
Key considerations would include ensuring human control over robots, protecting data acquired by robots and preventing illegal use.
Obviously there are still a number of wrinkles to be smoothed out. I mean, “robots as wives” and “human control over robots” are pretty much mutually exclusive propositions as far as I can tell.
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