Robot ethics
What you’ll learn
- The main ethical questions in robotics
- Ways engineers reduce harm
- How to discuss ethics with evidence, not just opinion
Big questions
| Topic | Question |
|---|---|
| Safety | How safe is safe enough, and who decides? |
| Responsibility | If an autonomous robot causes harm, who is responsible: the maker, the owner, the programmer? |
| Jobs | Robots replace some tasks and create others. How should society support people whose work changes? |
| Privacy | Robots with cameras and microphones collect data in homes and public spaces. Who owns it? |
| Bias | AI trained on unbalanced data can work worse for some groups of people. |
| Weapons | Should machines ever be allowed to decide to use force? Many experts and organisations argue for strict limits on autonomous weapons. |
| Human contact | Should robots care for elderly people or children, and what might be lost? |
What engineers do about it
- Safety by design: emergency stops, speed limits near people, fail-safes.
- Privacy by design: collect less data, process it on the robot, delete it.
- Testing with diverse users and data.
- Transparency: explain what the robot can and can’t do.
- Keep humans in charge of high-stakes decisions.
Example: a school security robot
A school considers a robot that patrols corridors with a camera.
- Benefit: extra eyes at night.
- Concerns: students filmed all day; who sees the footage; false alarms.
- Design changes: only patrol after hours; blur faces unless an alarm triggers; delete footage after 7 days; publish the policy.
Example: the bias check
A hand-gesture robot was trained only with photos of adult hands under bright light. In testing it failed often for children and in dim rooms. Fix: collect more varied data and report accuracy for each group.
Your viewEasy
Should robots be allowed to deliver parcels on pavements? Write one argument for and one against.
Responsibility chainMedium
A delivery robot bumps into a person. List everyone who might share responsibility, and what each could have done differently. For example: the manufacturer (sensor design, testing), the software team (speed near people), the operator company (routes, maintenance), and the city (rules for where robots may go).
Ethics reviewHard
Write an ethics checklist (6+ questions) that your team must answer before building any robot that works near people.
Quick check
Finished this lesson?