Encouraging CUlture of REsponsible RoboticS

This project brings a sociological perspective to the field of roboethics and Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). The focus is on robots defined as physically embodied artificial agents, particularly new types of robots such as social robots that are designed in appearance and functionality to communicate with humans and engage them in social interactions. In order to ensure that robotics technologies are beneficial for society it is important to develop frameworks for ethical robot design and responsible robotics. Yet, from the roboticists’ perspective, the existing approaches and initiatives dedicated to ethics in robotics have been considered as largely inadequate as they often cannot be easily translated into the engineering and computer science terms, and implemented into the actual robot design. Thus, the question is how to facilitate integration of ethics into the actual roboticists’ thinking and work. We propose here that one way to achieve such a goal is by fostering the emergence of a ‘culture of responsible robotics’. The aim of the project is to investigate which strategies and measures would need to be undertaken in order to facilitate the emergence of such a culture of responsible robotics, which primarily and ultimately would pertain to the considerations and practices of robot developers and users, but also will need to begin with the HRI research communit.