December 20th, 2008 | 
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A British scientist is calling for immediate introduction of robot ethics guidelines amid surging use of the machines and concern about their lack of human responsibility while caring for children or the elderly.
In an article published Thursday in the US journal Science, Noel Sharkey, a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, argues that the steady increase in the use of robots in day-to-day life poses unanticipated risks and ethical problems.
Outside of military applications, Sharkey worries how robots – and particularly the people who control them – will be held accountable when the machines work with “the vulnerable,” namely children and the elderly, stressing that there are already robotic machines in wide use such as the Japanese meal assistance robot “My Spoon.”…
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