When is a robot a moral agent

The author argues that in certain circumstances robots can be seen as real moral agents. A distinction is\ud made between persons and moral agents such that, it is not necessary for a robot to have personhood in\ud order to be a moral agent. I detail three requirements for a robot to be seen as a moral agent. The first is\ud achieved when the robot is significantly autonomous from any programmers or operators of the machine.\ud The second is when one can analyze or explain the robot???s behavior only by ascribing to it some predisposition\ud or ???intention??? to do good or harm. And finally, robot moral agency requires the robot to behave in a way\ud that shows and understanding of responsibility to some other moral agent. Robots with all of these criteria\ud will have moral rights as well as responsibilities regardless of their status as persons

Drones in the crosshairs

A review and commentary on Killing By Remote Control: the Ethics of an Unmanned Military, edited by Bradley Jay Strawser (forward by Jeff McMahan), (Oxford University Press)

An Evaluation Schema for the Ethical Use of Autonomous Robotic Systems in Security Applications

We propose a multi-step evaluation schema designed to help procurement agencies and others to examine the ethical dimensions of autonomous systems to be applied in the security sector, including autonomous weapons systems