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Submission + - Survey says autonomous cars should prioritize their passengers lives over others (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: In a moral dilemma involving an autonomous car that has to decide between killing a child on the road, or its passenger, 64% of survey respondents said the car should kill the child. The Open Roboethics Research initiative explored the reasons why. Most respondents said that the car should always prioritize the passenger's safety over that of others, otherwise we wouldn't be able to trust the technology. What do you think?

Submission + - My (autonomous) Car, My Safety: Results from our Reader Poll (robohub.org)

Submitted by AJung Moon
AJung Moon writes: In a moral dilemma involving an autonomous car that has to decide between killing a child on the road, or its passenger, 64% said the car should kill the child. We explored the reasons why. Most of the responses say that the car should always prioritize the passenger's safety over that of others.

Submission + - Jibo's Cynthia Breazeal on "Why social robots will change your life" (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Take note, developers! In this thoughtful essay, Cynthia Breazeal — Founder and CEO of Jibo Inc, professor at MIT's Media Lab, and acknowledged pioneer behind the social robotics movement — argues for the urgent need to humanize personal technology in order to improve our ability to engage with it.

Submission + - Reader poll: How would you like to interface with your autonomous car? (robohub.org)

Submitted by AJung Moon
AJung Moon writes: We interact with gadgets and devices everyday. When it comes to interfacing with a device as exciting and complicated as an autonomous car, we will need to do so on many levels. We will want to set our destination, surely, or perhaps set a maximum speed. Or we might wish to be alerted if the car must pull into a gas station to refuel in the middle of a trip, or if we will soon be passing a rest area. How would you want to interface with an autonomous car? Let us know via a short poll.

Submission + - An ethical dilemma: When robot cars must kill, who should pick the victim? (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Driverless cars stand to reduce the number of driving fatalities overall, but there will still be fatal car crashes that are unavoidable. In this insightful essay, robot ethicist Jason Millar suggests that just because designers hold the technical abilities to engineer autonomous cars, it does not give them the authority to impose particular moral decisions on all users.

Submission + - If a death by an autonomous car is unavoidable, who should die? (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: The Tunnel Problem: You are travelling along a single lane mountain road in an autonomous car that is approaching a narrow tunnel. You are the only passenger of the car. Just before entering the tunnel a child attempts to run across the road but trips in the center of the lane, effectively blocking the entrance to the tunnel. The car has only two options: continue straight, thereby hitting and killing the child, or swerve, thereby colliding into the wall on either side of the tunnel and killing you. What is the ethical choice? Who should make this decision?

Philosophers and stakeholders in autonomous cars have been seriously engaged in the ethics debate that comes out of these questions. Have your say in our reader poll.

Submission + - Is 'tricking' judges in the Turing Test the same as AI? (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: From Colin Lewis: "Recent headlines have been awash with stories of a computer program ‘disguised’ as a 13 year old Ukrainian boy Eugene Goostman has passed the Turing Test. We will likely hear of more programs that have passed the Turing Test in the near future – how close these claims are to the real ‘spirit’ of the Turing Test is certainly very debatable."

Submission + - Robot selfies, and the road to self-recognition (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: What if, by taking a selfie, a robot could interpret its own gestures, and reflect and optimize its behavior? Or if it could study its selfie and learn to make its smile more credible? Could it gain 'self-awareness' by recognizing its own reflection in the mirror? Philosopher and business informatics expert Oliver Bendel looks at what it means for a robot to take a selfie.

Submission + - SoftBank quietly acquires 78.5% of Aldebaran; Pepper is their 1st collaboration (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: From Frank Tobe: "In 2012, SoftBank quietly acquired 78.5% of Aldebaran Robotics (of Nao and Romeo fame), a fact that has been hidden to the public until now. Pepper is their first joint effort – and it is a very ambitious and extensive one. Pepper is designed to live with humans; it doesn’t clean or cook but it talks, is mobile, can read emotions, and reacts autonomously to “make people happy.” Pepper was created specifically for SoftBank and the Japanese market, and is designed to be engaging and friendly, a companion able to communicate through an intuitive artificial intelligence interface that reads and interprets voice, touch and emotions."

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