The accelerated development of robotics technologies and their permeation in most aspects of our lives in recent years have raised many ethical issues, which are largely debated in the society at large. The purpose of this Ethics Forum at ICRA 2017 is to stimulate the reflection within our robotics community on such questions, in particular

  • Are robots 'stealing' jobs from human workers? Do we bear any responsibility in the so-called 'technological unemployment'?
  • Are robotic weapons 'ethical'? What are our responsibilities and what role should we play in the societal debates on robotic weapons?

Prominent speakers from academia and NGOs will share their ideas and engage the audience on these questions through their presentations, panel discussion, and interaction with the floor.

Thursday - June 1, 2017 

Venue: Room 4211/4212 (Level 4)

TIME SESSION
1610 – 1725 ETHICS FORUM
Chair: Quang-Cuong Pham, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Co-Chairs: Ludovic Righetti, Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Germany; Raja Chatila, Past President, IEEE RAS (2014 – 2015) & Director of Research, CNRS, France
1610 – 1620 IEEE global initiative for ethical considerations in AI and autonomous systems
Raja Chatila, Past President, IEEE RAS (2014 – 2015) & Director of Research, CNRS, France
1620 – 1635 Robotics and Anthropomorphism: the need to deconstruct the discourse
Jean-Paul Laumond, Director of Research, CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research)
1635 – 1655 On the open letter for the ban of autonomous weapons and the survey on impacts of Robotics and AI on jobs
Toby Walsh, Professor, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia
1655 – 1725 Panel Discussion
  • Raja Chatila, Past President, IEEE RAS (2014 – 2015) & Director of Research, CNRS, France
  • Toby Walsh, Professor, UNSW, Australia
  • Jean-Paul Laumond, Director of Research, CNRS, France
  • Kerstin Vignard, Deputy Director and Chief of Operations, UN Institute for Disarmament Research
  • Raj Madhavan, CEO, Humanitarian Robotics Technologies & Chair, IEEE RAS Research and Practice Ethics Committee
  • Naho Kitano, Researcher at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Co-Founder and former director of Hibot Corp