Ethics of artificial intelligence and robotics

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are digital technologiesthat will have significant impact on the development of humanity in the nearfuture. They have raised fundamental questions about what we should dowith these systems, what the systems themselves should do, what risksthey involve, and how we can control these., After the Introduction to the field (§1), the main themes (§2) of thisarticle are: Ethical issues that arise with AI systems asobjects, i.e., tools made and used by humans. This includesissues of privacy (§2.1) and manipulation (§2.2), opacity (§2.3) and bias (§2.4), human-robotinteraction (§2.5), employment (§2.6), and the effects of autonomy (§2.7). Then AI systemsas subjects, i.e., ethics for the AI systems themselves inmachine ethics (§2.8) and artificial moral agency (§2.9). Finally, the problem of apossible future AI superintelligence leading to a"singularity" (§2.10). We close with a remark on the vision of AI (§3)., For each section within these themes, we provide a general explanationof the ethical issues, outline existing positionsand arguments, then analyse how these play out with currenttechnologies and finally, what policy consequencesmay be drawn.