I’m going to switch gears today and talk about industrial automation.
Last December, Rockwell Automation – one of the leading companies in industrial automation – released a white paper entitled “International Safety Standards Keep Pace with Advances in Robotic Technology and Applications”. This paper talks about the current robotics safety standard (ISO 10218-1 and ANSI/RIA R15.06), and the new standard (part 2 of ISO 10218, or ISO 10218-2) being drafted for release in 2011.
With a brief overview of history of robots, the paper talks about how ANSI/RIA R.15.06 adopted in 1999 …

A new study from Carnegie Mellon University by Jodi Forlizzi “How Robotic Products Become Social Products: An Ethnographic Study of Robotic Products in the Home” states that “when simple social attributes are part of the design of robotic products and systems, people may adopt them more readily and find them less stigmatizing”.
In this study, six different families were given either a stick vacuum cleaner or a Roomba, and an ethnographic study was conducted.
For media coverage on the literature please visit NewScientist.com

Autonomous Military Robotics: Risk, Ethics, and Design
Access: PDF
Prepared on: December 2008
Authors: Patrick Lin, Ph.D., George Bekey, Ph.D., Keith Abney, M.A. (Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo)
Comments: A 112 page document on military robotics. A condensed version of ToC available below. Chapter 3 goes through the Top-Down, Bottom-Up, and Hybrid approaches of programming morality, which is also mentioned in the book Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong.
1. Introduction
2. Military Robotics
3. Programming Morality
4. The Laws of War and Rules of Engagement
5. Law and Responsibility
6. Technology Risk Assessment Framework
7. Robot …

I found a presentation by Mr. John S. Canning, Chief Engineer of G80 Division Naval Surface Warfare Centre, titled “A Concept of Operations for Armed Autonomous Systems”. Armin Krishnan commented on some of the John Canning’s thoughts during his interview with Institute of Religion and Peace (access Krishnan interview post).
In the presentation he goes through:

Legal review of weapons
Rules of Engagement
Discriminate use of force
Issues of target discrimination
A proposed concept of operations for autonomous use of weapons
Valid targets from a legal standpoint
Target subset for autonomous systems
Legal precedence

He concludes his presentation with the …

This paper argues that psychological questions are as important as ontological questions related to human-like robot development. Nine psychological benchmarks to measure success of human-likeness of a robot is introduced: autonomy, imitation, intrinsic moral value, moral accountability, privacy, reciprocity, conventionality, creativity, and authenticity of relation. Argues that there are strong and weak ontological and psychological claims, combination of which result in four different future cases of how humans will perceive/accept robots and what robots will have become.
Here, the authors define ‘psychological benchmark’ as “categories of interaction that capture conceptually fundamental aspects of human life, specified abstractly enough to resist their identity as a mere psychological instrument, but capable of being translated into testable empirical
propositions”. Later, they argue that “in investigating who we are as a species, and who we can become, we need not privilege the biological “platform”.” Also included is an ambitious claim that “we seek to put into play the entirety of human psychology, extending not only into the realms of sociality but also morality.”

Another newly discovered journal!

There are three special issues from this journal that might be of interest to you: 1.Psychological Benchmarks of Human-Robot Interaction(2007), 2. Human and Robot Interactive Communication(2008), 3. Robots in the Wile: Exploring human-robot interaction in naturalistic environments(2009)

Some interesting titles from the journal: “What is a Human? Toward psychological benchmarks in the field of human–robot interaction”, “Nonverbal intimacy as a benchmark for human–robot interaction”, and “The influence of robot personality on perceived and preferred level of user control”

There’s nothing like discovering an entire volume of a journal that covers your topic of interest – especially on early Monday mornings. First, there’s joy similar to that of treasure hunters finding a box of treasure. Then, the reality of your limited reading speed and lack of reading time strikes you and takes away a big chunk of the joy.
IRIE, the International Review of Information Ethics, was one such journal for me this morning. It had covered the topic of ethics in robotics in 2006, where the following thirteen papers …

Authors: Mark Coeckelbergh
International Journal of Social Robotics, Volume 1, Number 3 / August, 2009
Link: SpringerLink – Journal Article.
Abstract:
The development of pet robots, toy robots, and sex robots suggests a near-future scenario of habitual living with ‘personal’ robots. How should we evaluate their potential impact on the quality of our lives and existence?

In this paper, I argue for an approach to ethics of personal robots that advocates a methodological turn from robots to humans, …

Authors: Jesse Butterfield · Odest Chadwicke Jenkins ·David M. Sobel · Jonas Schwertfeger
International Journal of Social Robotics
Link: SpringerLink – Journal Article.
Abstract
We propose Markov random fields (MRFs) as a probabilistic mathematical model for incorporating the internal states of other agents, both human and robotic, into robot decision making. By using estimates of Theory of Mind (ToM), the mental states of other agents can be incorporated into decision making through statistical inference, allowing robots …

Authors: Andrea Bauer · Klaas Klasing · Georgios Lidoris · Quirin Mühlbauer ·Florian Rohrmüller · Stefan Sosnowski · Tingting Xu ·Kolja Kühnlenz ·DirkWollherr · Martin Buss
International Journal of Social Robotics
Link: SpringerLink.
Abstract
The Autonomous City Explorer (ACE) project combines research from autonomous outdoor navigation and human-robot interaction. The ACE robot is capable of navigating unknown urban environments without the use of GPS data or prior map knowledge. It finds its way by interacting with pedestrians in a natural and intuitive way and building …