According to Brad Allenby, engineer and ethicist at the Arizona State University, the human race is way behind time in developing policies, laws and guidelines to deal with problems.
In view of this scenario, advancements in robotics can raise more controversies as they are making it possible that robots could become inseparable in major aspects of society such as transportation, national defense, personal security, law enforcement, government and healthcare and this could surely result in controversies.
Robot scientists are incorporating technology with humans in ways that could threaten cultural and ethical ideas. Allenby has written his views in a book review titled “Morals and machines” in Nature magazine.
A computer scientist and two philosophers edited an anthology titled ‘Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics’ that presents experts’ viewpoints on the complex questions that require answers on the role of robots in everyday life. Allenby offers a detailed guide to challenges tackled by the book’s authors. The book contains some interesting questions like should robots be trusted to play the role of caregivers by giving them the ability to comprehend human emotion? can they understand the laws controlling warfare before being sent for military actions?
Allenby works as a professor of engineering and ethics with Arizona State University’s Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics and a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, one of Arizona State University’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering