Content area
Full Text
Robot Ethics: the Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics Patrick Lin, Keith Abney, and George A. Bekey, Editors. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-262-01 666-7, 356 PAGES, PAPER, $47.00.
"It is change, continuous change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today." Despite our recognition of the veracity of Isaac Asimov's statement, the rate of technological progress always seems to outstrip our ability to reflect ethically on those advances. In Robot Ethics: the Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, the authors attempt to intercept these changes mid-stream by providing a thorough, thoughtful, and stimulating reflection on the array of ethical issues posed by our current and future engagement with robots, both personal and societal.
In twenty-two essays by an international panel of authors, the book covers the many facets of our current engagement with robotics as well as foreseeable future developments. Following a presentation of three general areas of ethical concern in robotics-safety, responsibility, and privacy-the specific manifestations of these issues across the applied field of robotics is explored: design and programming, military, law, medicine, psychology, sex, and culminating with the issue of robot rights. Although some authors argued on philosophical and ontological grounds that a fully autonomous robot was an unlikely possibility, almost all authors addressed the possibility...