Japan drafts their own version of robot ethics

While it did our carbon-based souls some good to see Europe and S.Korea drafting ethical robot legislation, we couldn't help but notice that Japan -- the true robotic superpower -- was mysteriously absent from the discussion table. No more! Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has drafted what has been called a "hugely complex set of proposals" to keep the robots from turning us all into a matrix of clean-shaven electrical batteries. The 60-pages of "civil service jargon" are said to go far beyond Asimov's original three laws of robotics. Under Japan's plan, all robots would be required to report back to a central database any and all injuries they cause to the people they are meant to be helping or protecting. The draft is currently open to public comment with a final set of principles set to be unveiled as early as May. Fine, but shouldn't we have a unified set of principles governing all robots, regardless of their country of manufacture?

[Via Impress]

[Rick Lyon @ Apr 6th 2007 8:38AM]

Why unified laws for all robots when we don't have unified laws for all humans regardless of country of residence? To each his own.

[Paul @ Apr 6th 2007 8:45AM]

huh... a central database? sounds like a way for robots to figure out the best way to hurt us!

SKYNET FTL

[McGinley @ Apr 6th 2007 9:01AM]

I, for one, Welcome our new injury reporting overlords!

[Paul @ Apr 6th 2007 12:04PM]

mcginley you are creeping me out as that is my last name.

[Jon Acheson @ Apr 6th 2007 9:30AM]

From reading the actual article, I'm guessing these guidelines are a lot more practical than the article here makes them out to be. Tracking robot-related injuries to see if it starts being a problem is a sensible idea, for instance.

Japan already has rules for operating industrial robots, things like "put a cage around it so people won't walk into a moving steel arm."

[Lee Roy Brandon III @ Apr 6th 2007 11:33AM]

Once the robots get competitve, it could get ugly. "I've got 42 frags, and a half dozen wounded so far today. Top that, Asimo!"

[McGinley @ Apr 6th 2007 12:10PM]

My cousin and uncle are called paul mcginley!

[Paul @ Apr 6th 2007 12:50PM]

Ryan?

[Marco @ Apr 6th 2007 12:15PM]

Paul McGinley, huh? I'm really going to enjoy that HD LCDTV you about to buy me.

I love identity theft.

[Alexeon @ Apr 6th 2007 3:00PM]

What happens if the robot from Japan gets taken to say the US? Do the Japanese laws still apply for it?

[John Stracke @ Apr 6th 2007 3:27PM]

Doesn't a robot have to be pretty intelligent to *know* that it's injured a human?

[Matt Hadder @ Apr 6th 2007 4:34PM]

Haha!
"Sir our robot injury reporting database is being overwhelmed!"
"At least they're being honest..."

These different sets of robot ethics are a good thing. How else will robots from other countries know that they're superior to each other? Haha!

[JQ @ Apr 7th 2007 6:32AM]

I can only say, "What??" robots are injuring people right now??" no way!!! Robot overlords. It was an accident... right???

[Dach @ Apr 8th 2007 5:21PM]

Perhaps as punishment for too many injuries, they can all be sent to a deserted island where Nixon's head will throw them a party.
Someone had to say it.

[Darth Obvious @ Sep 12th 2007 5:44PM]

Everyone seems to neglect one issue. One thing is a robot after it exits the production line and it's quite another after someone modifies it's original programming. Hackers will always exist as long as programs do. Think of it this way, when toys such as Sony's AIBO ended up getting it's AI hacked; Sony intially protested such modification to it's default AI algorithms but was eventually faced with the futility of having no power to stop the hackers and released developement tools to facilitate what was being done anyway. Imagine when we have full scale humanoid robots, fully sentient, self-aware and which can also use our tools to replicate themselves. All it takes is one hacker and one rogue robot to spawn legions of reprogrammed offspring. Ethics are useless when applied to robots, we need to perfect human ethics for that to be feasible; and given the military application for robots is just too tempting for our current unethical governments to pass up in some Cold War style arms race in the near future I don't see how that is possible(barring the sudden evolution of humanity past it's current warlike troglodytic state).