Ethical, Philosophical and Moral Considerations

Abstract

It may seem a little strange in a book on advanced robotics and control systems to have a section on such “soft” issues as ethics, philosophy, and morality. I would, however, make the contrary argument: might it be strange not to discuss, at least in outline, the potential ramifications for human society of the creation, by an evolutionary process, of mechanical creatures in our own likeness whose workings may not (and may never) be fully understood, a fact which some of the earliest researchers in this field readily acknowledged (de Garis 1990a; Sims 1994a).