A SLAVES’ CODE OF CONDUCT FOR SLAVEHOLDERS

Rules for robots to make sure robots don't rule (Ed Habershon and Richard Woods, The Australian, June 20th, 2006)

The race is on to keep humans one step ahead of robots: an international team of scientists and academics is to publish a "code of ethics" for machines as they become more and more sophisticated.

Although the nightmare vision of a Terminator world controlled by machines may seem fanciful, scientists believe the boundaries for human-robot interaction must be set now, before super-intelligent robots develop beyond our control.

"There are two levels of priority," says Gianmarco Verruggio, a roboticist at the Institute of Intelligent Systems for Automation in Genoa, northern Italy, and chief architect of the guide, to be published next month. "We have to manage the ethics of the scientists making the robots and the artificial ethics inside the robots."

Verruggio and his colleagues have identified key areas that include ensuring human control of robots, preventing illegal use, protecting data acquired by robots and establishing clear identification and traceability of the machines.

"Scientists must start analysing these kinds of questions and seeing if laws or regulations are needed to protect the citizen," Mr Verruggio says.

"Robots will develop strong intelligence and in some ways it will be better than human intelligence - but it will be alien intelligence. I would prefer to give priority to humans."

The analysis culminated at a recent meeting in Genoa of the European Robotics Research Network (Euron) to examine the problems likely to arise as robots become smarter, faster, stronger and ubiquitous.

"Security, safety and sex are the big concerns," says Henrik Christensen, a member of the Euron ethics group. How far should robots be allowed to influence people's lives? How can accidents be avoided? Can deliberate harm be prevented? And what happens if robots turn out to be sexy?

Yes, men the world over will shudder at the thought of being chased by sultry, seductive robots. Nonsense or not, it is extremely amusing to see these Dr. Frankensteins assure us they can protect us from robots that are “smarter, faster, stronger and ubiquitous” by developing just the right ethical guidelines.