The Essence of Ethical Reasoning in Robot-Emotion Processing

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature. As social robots become more and more intelligent and autonomous in operation, it is extremely important to ensure that such robots act in socially acceptable manner. More specifically, if such an autonomous robot is capable of generating and expressing emotions of its own, it should also have an ability to reason if it is ethical to exhibit a particular emotional state in response to a surrounding event. Most existing computational models of emotion for social robots have focused on achieving a certain level of believability of the emotions expressed. We argue that believability of a robot’s emotions, although crucially necessary, is not a sufficient quality to elicit socially acceptable emotions. Thus, we stress on the need of higher level of cognition in emotion processing mechanism which empowers social robots with an ability to decide if it is socially appropriate to express a particular emotion in a given context or it is better to inhibit such an experience. In this paper, we present the detailed mathematical explanation of the ethical reasoning mechanism in our computational model, EEGS, that helps a social robot to reach to the most socially acceptable emotional state when more than one emotions are elicited by an event. Experimental results show that ethical reasoning in EEGS helps in the generation of believable as well as socially acceptable emotions

Artificial consciousness and the consciousness-attention dissociation

Artificial Intelligence is at a turning point, with a substantial increase in projects aiming to implement sophisticated forms of human intelligence in machines. This research attempts to model specific forms of intelligence through brute-force search heuristics and also reproduce features of human perception and cognition, including emotions. Such goals have implications for artificial consciousness, with some arguing that it will be achievable once we overcome short-term engineering challenges. We believe, however, that phenomenal consciousness cannot be implemented in machines. This becomes clear when considering emotions and examining the dissociation between consciousness and attention in humans. While we may be able to program ethical behavior based on rules and machine learning, we will never be able to reproduce emotions or empathy by programming such control systems—these will be merely simulations. Arguments in favor of this claim include considerations about evolution, the neuropsychological aspects of emotions, and the dissociation between attention and consciousness found in humans. Ultimately, we are far from achieving artificial consciousness

Moral Reasoning and Emotion

This chapter discusses contemporary scientific research on the role of reason and emotion in moral judgment. The literature suggests that moral judgment is influenced by both reasoning and emotion separately, but there is also emerging evidence of the interaction between the two. While there are clear implications for the rationalism-sentimentalism debate, we conclude that important questions remain open about how central emotion is to moral judgment. We also suggest ways in which moral philosophy is not only guided by empirical research but continues to guide it

A Formal Model of Metaphor in Frame Semantics

A formal model of metaphor is introduced. It models metaphor, first, as an interaction of “frames” according to the frame semantics, and then, as a wave function in Hilbert space. The practical way for a probability distribution and a corresponding wave function to be assigned to a given metaphor in a given language is considered. A series of formal definitions is deduced from this for: “representation”, “reality”, “language”, “ontology”, etc. All are based on Hilbert space. A few statements about a quantum computer are implied: The sodefined reality is inherent and internal to it. It can report a result only “metaphorically”. It will demolish transmitting the result “literally”, i.e. absolutely exactly. A new and different formal definition of metaphor is introduced as a few entangled wave functions corresponding to different “signs” in different language formally defined as above. The change of frames as the change from the one to the other formal definition of metaphor is interpreted as a formal definition of thought. Four areas of cognition are unified as different but isomorphic interpretations of the mathematical model based on Hilbert space. These are: quantum mechanics, frame semantics, formal semantics by means of quantum computer, and the theory of metaphor in linguistics

Machine Medical Ethics

In medical settings, machines are in close proximity with human beings: with patients who are in vulnerable states of health, who have disabilities of various kinds, with the very young or very old, and with medical professionals. Machines in these contexts are undertaking important medical tasks that require emotional sensitivity, knowledge of medical codes, human dignity, and privacy. As machine technology advances, ethical concerns become more urgent: should medical machines be programmed to follow a code of medical ethics? What theory or theories should constrain medical machine conduct? What design features are required? Should machines share responsibility with humans for the ethical consequences of medical actions? How ought clinical relationships involving machines to be modeled? Is a capacity for empathy and emotion detection necessary? What about consciousness? The essays in this collection by researchers from both humanities and science describe various theoretical and experimental approaches to adding medical ethics to a machine, what design features are necessary in order to achieve this, philosophical and practical questions concerning justice, rights, decision-making and responsibility, and accurately modeling essential physician-machine-patient relationships. This collection is the first book to address these 21st-century concerns

Responsible Human-Robot Interaction with Anthropomorphic Service Robots: State of the Art of an Interdisciplinary Research Challenge

Anthropomorphic service robots are on the rise. The more capable they become and the more regular they are applied in real-world settings, the more critical becomes the responsible design of human-robot interaction (HRI) with special attention to human dignity, transparency, privacy, and robot compliance. In this paper we review the interdisciplinary state of the art relevant for the responsible design of HRI. Furthermore, directions for future research on the responsible design of HRI with anthropomorphic service robots are suggested

Persuasive Intelligence: On the Construction of Rhetor-Ethical Cognitive Machines

This work concerns the rhetorical and moral agency of machines, offering paths forward in machine ethics as well as problematizing the issue through the development and use of an interdisciplinary framework informed by rhetoric, philosophy of mind, media studies and historical narrative. I argue that cognitive machines of the past as well as those today, such as rapidly improving autonomous vehicles, are unable to make moral decisions themselves foremost because a moral agent must first be a rhetorical agent, capable of persuading and of being persuaded. I show that current machines, artificially intelligent or otherwise, and especially digital computers, are primarily concerned with control, whereas persuasive behavior requires an understanding of possibility. Further, this dissertation connects rhetorical agency and moral agency (what I call a rhetor-ethical constitution) by way of the Heraclitean notion of syllapsis ( grasping ), a mode of cognition that requires an agent to practice analysis and synthesis at once, cognizing the whole and its parts simultaneously. This argument does not, however, indicate that machines are devoid of ethical or rhetorical activity or future agency. To the contrary, the larger purpose of developing this theoretical framework is to provide avenues of research, exploration and experimentation in machine ethics and persuasion that have been overlooked or ignored thus far by adhering to restricted disciplinary programs; and, given the ontological nature of the ephemeral binary that drives digital computation, I show that at least in principle, computers share the syllaptic operating principle required for rhetor-ethical decisions and action

The Effects of Android Robots Displaying Emotion on Humans: Interactions between Older Adults and Android Robots

Often robots are seen as a means to an end to fulfill a logical objective task. Android robots, on the other hand, provide new possibilities to fulfill emotional tasks and could therefore be integrated into assistive scenarios. We explored this possibility by letting older adults and stakeholders have a conversation with an android robot capable of expressing emotion through facial expressions. The study was carried out with a wizard-of-oz approach and data collected with a mixed methods approach. We found that the participants were encouraged to speak more with the robot due to its smile. Simultaneously, many ethical questions were raised about transparency and manipulation. Our research can give valuable insight into the reaction of older adults to android robots that show emotions.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, CHI 202

Safety Intelligence and Legal Machine Language: Do We Need the Three Laws of Robotics?

In this chapter we will describe a legal framework for Next Generation Robots (NGRs) that has safety as its central focus. The framework is offered in response to the current lack of clarity regarding robot safety guidelines, despite the development and impending release of tens of thousands of robots into workplaces and homes around the world. We also describ