Drone-Ethics Briefing: What a Leading Robot Expert Told the CIA
Robots are replacing humans on the battlefield--but could they also be used to interrogate and torture suspects? This would avoid a serious ethical conflict between physicians' duty to do no harm, or nonmaleficence, and their questionable role in monitoring vital signs and health of the interrogated. A robot, on the other hand, wouldn't be bound by the Hippocratic oath, though its very existence creates new dilemmas of its own.
By the way, Pat's edited volume Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics with Keith Abney and George Bekey is just out from MIT Press. Looks like a great set of chapters. (Chapter 4 is by Wendell and me, responding to some of the criticisms we've heard of our Moral Machines over the past 3 years.)
