Towards industrial robots with human-like moral responsibilities

Abstract

Robots do not have any capability of taking moral responsibility. At the same time industrial robotics is entering a new era with "intelligent" robots sharing workbench with humans. Teams consisting of humans and industrial robots are no longer science fiction. The biggest worry in this scenario is the fear of humans losing control and robots running amok. We believe that the current way of implementing safety measures have shortcomings, and cannot address challenges related to close collaboration between humans and robots. We propose that "intelligent" industrial robots of the future should have moral responsibilities towards their human colleagues. We also propose that implementation of moral responsibility is radically different from standard safety measures.