Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong

Wendell Wallach · Colin Allen

Nov 2008 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

Computers are already approving financial transactions, controlling electrical supplies, and driving trains. Soon, service robots will be taking care of the elderly in their homes, and military robots will have their own targeting and firing protocols. Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach argue that as robots take on more and more responsibility, they must be programmed with moral decision-making abilities, for our own safety. Taking a fast paced tour through the latest thinking about philosophical ethics and artificial intelligence, the authors argue that even if full moral agency for machines is a long way off, it is already necessary to start building a kind of functional morality, in which artificial moral agents have some basic ethical sensitivity. But the standard ethical theories don't seem adequate, and more socially engaged and engaging robots will be needed. As the authors show, the quest to build machines that are capable of telling right from wrong has begun. Moral Machines is the first book to examine the challenge of building artificial moral agents, probing deeply into the nature of human decision making and ethics.

Ratings and reviews

Wallach and Allen transcend the divide between philosophers and engineers on the intriguing idea of building machines that handle ethical issues well enough to keep up with increasing autonomy. They introduce the issue and cover both sides, with various philosophical views on ethics and cutting edge research in artificial intelligence. As an engineer doing work in the area, I found it totally fantastic that they thought so much about the engineering side; actually trying to build "moral machines", and presented their own thoughts toward that end. This is a text book for a very interesting engineering ethics course. If you're seriously interested in the subject, you really need to read it.

About the author

Wendell Wallach is a consultant and writer and is affiliated with Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. Colin Allen is a Professor of History & Philosophy of Science and of Cognitive Science at Indiana University