Teaching Robots the Rules of War
[Dr. Ronald C.] Arkin’s “ethical controller” is a software architecture that provides, “ethical control and reasoning system potentially suitable for constraining lethal actions in an autonomous robotic system so that they fall within the bounds prescribed by the Geneva Conventions, the Laws of War, and the Rules of Engagement.”
[The robots] can be designed without a sense of self-preservation and, as a result, “no tendency to lash out in fear.” They can be built without anger or recklessness and they can be made invulnerable to what he calls “the psychological problem of ‘scenario fulfillment,’ ” that causes people to absorb new information more easily if it matches their pre-existing ideas.
A montage of very well-armed robots:
Emotional Robots: Will We Love Them or Hate Them?
Innerscope's approach is the latest in a wave of ever more sophisticated emotion-sensing technologies. For years, computers in some call centres have monitored our voices so that managers can home in on what makes us fly into a wild rage. The latest technologies could soon be built into everyday gadgets to smooth our interactions with them. In-car alarms that jolt sleepy drivers awake, satnavs that sense our frustration in a traffic jam and offer alternative routes, and monitors that diagnose depression from body language are all in the pipeline. Prepare for the era of emotionally aware gadgets.