Colloquium R. Chatila : Thursday, April 6, 2017

Ethical issues in robotics and artificial intelligence

Abstract : The ethical, legal and societal (ELS) issues raised by the development of Artificial Intelligence and robotics date back to about fifteen years ago (even if some reflections had already started before) and have recently become quite prevalent, with the appearance of new applications. They concern a wide range of issues such as employment, privacy and personal data exploitation, surveillance, interaction with vulnerable people, human dignity, autonomous decision making, moral and legal responsibility of the robot or intelligent system, imitation of the living, the status of the robot in society, the status of the human augmented by the robot. The research and design process itself is at stake: how to develop systems with an ethical and responsible methodology? Is it possible to create systems that include human values in their own functioning and in their autonomous decision-making? These questions sometimes renew classical subjects in ethical philosophy and law by transposing them to machines, but they also raise new issues on which reflection must mobilize interdisciplinary communities in order to apprehend all the scientific, technical, human and social facets.