Abstract
There are only a few ethical regulations that deal explicitly with robots, in contrast to a vast number of regulations, which may be applied. We will focus on ethical issues with regard to “responsibility and autonomous robots”, “machines as a replacement for humans”, and “tele-presence”. Furthermore we will examine examples from special fields of application (medicine and healthcare, armed forces, and entertainment). We do not claim to present a complete list of ethical issue nor of regulations in the field of robotics, but we will demonstrate that there are legal challenges with regard to these issues.
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Commission Recommendation from 11 March 2005 on the European Charter for Researchers and on a Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers.
The “Charter for Researchers” has meanwhile been signed by more than 70 institutions from 18 nations (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, Spain, and Switzerland) as well as by the international EIROforum.
Software agents, i.e., may support users with purposefully releasing or hiding information. Beyond this, Allen/Wallach/Smith (2006) suggested to develop agents being able to recognize private situations and to react appropriately. There may also be reminding to the suggestion by Rosen (2004) to build “blob machines” instead of “naked machines”. Such thoughts are also found, e.g., in around the “Semantic Web”, where in the context of the “Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Project” (www.w3.org/P3P) there is trying to describe the collecting and use of data in a way which could be read by machines and to this way control the flow of these data. In a general sense, also developments towards the “Policy-Aware Web” (Kolovski et al. 2005) must be taken into account here. However, together with Borking (2006) we must, e.g., state: “Building privacy rules set down in the Directive 95/46/EC and 2002/58/EC into information systems for protecting personal data poses a great challenge for the architects”.
Consideration of Reports submitted by States Parties under Article 12 (1) of the optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (CRC/C/OPSC/QAT/CO/1) (2 June 2006).
See the statements by Jean-Francois Germain (Ichbiah 2005, p. 247).
Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directives 90/385/EEC and 93/42/EEC and Directive 98/8/EC of the European Parliament and the Council as regards the review of the medical device directives (22.12.2005).
www.smarthome.com/7853.html.
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Nagenborg, M., Capurro, R., Weber, J. et al. Ethical regulations on robotics in Europe. AI & Soc 22, 349–366 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-007-0153-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-007-0153-y