{"324851":{"#nid":"324851","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"Ethical trap: robot paralysed by choice of who to save","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003ECAN we teach a robot to be good? Fascinated by the idea, roboticist Alan Winfield of Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK built an ethical trap for a robot \u2013 and was stunned by the machine\u0027s response\u2026 But robots designed for military combat may offer the beginning of a solution. \u003Cstrong\u003ERonald Arkin (Interactive Computing)\u003C\/strong\u003E, a computer scientist at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, has built a set of algorithms for military robots \u2013 dubbed an \u0022ethical governor\u0022 \u2013 which is meant to help them make smart decisions on the battlefield. He has already tested it in simulated combat, showing that drones with such programming can choose not to shoot, or try to minimise casualties during a battle near an area protected from combat according to the rules of war, like a school or hospital. Arkin says that designing military robots to act more ethically may be low-hanging fruit, as these rules are well known. \u0022The laws of war have been thought about for thousands of years and are encoded in treaties.\u0022 Unlike human fighters, who can be swayed by emotion and break these rules, automatons would not.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p3\u0022\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg22329863.700-ethical-trap-robot-paralysed-by-choice-of-who-to-save.html#.VBZTYcduFw0\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003ESource: New Scientist\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27592","created_gmt":"2014-09-15 12:55:54","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 02:27:17","author":"Joshua Preston","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg22329863.700-ethical-trap-robot-paralysed-by-choice-of-who-to-save.html#.VBZTYcduFw0","dateline":{"date":"2014-09-14T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-09-14T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"1299","name":"GVU Center"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"667","name":"robotics"},{"id":"14444","name":"ron arkin"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}