research-article

Free access

RoboCode-Ethicists: Privacy-friendly robots, an ethical responsibility of engineers?

Authors:

Christoph Lutz,

Aurelia TamòAuthors Info & Claims

NS Ethics '15: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Ethics in Networked Systems Research

Pages 27 - 28

https://doi.org/10.1145/2793013.2793022

Published: 21 August 2015 Publication History

PDF eReader

Abstract

This contribution addresses the privacy implications of robots. Two aspects are of fundamental concern in this context: the pervasiveness and intrusiveness of robots on the one hand and a general lack of awareness and knowledge about how robots work, collect and process sensitive data on the other hand.The existing literature on robot ethics provides a suitable framework to address these two issues. In particular, robot ethics are useful to point out how engineers' and regulators' mindset towards privacy protection differs. Different, at first sight incommensurable, rationalities exist between the two when it comes to robotic privacy. As a contribution to the emerging field of robotic privacy, we propose an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach that bridges the two rationalities. This approach considers the role of code as the central governing element of robots. RoboCode-Ethicists, trans-disciplinary experts trained in the technical/computational, legal and social aspects of robotics, should lead the way in the discussion on robotic privacy. They could mediate between different stakeholders and address emerging privacy issues as early as possible.

References

[1]

Bekey, G. 2012. Current Trends in Robotics: Technology and Ethics. In Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, P. Lin, G. Bekey, and K. Abney, Eds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 17--34.

Google Scholar

[2]

Calo, R. 2012. Robots and Privacy. In Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics, P. Lin, G. Bekey, and K. Abney, Eds. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 187--202.

Google Scholar

[3]

Calo, R. 2014. Robotics and the New Cyberlaw. SSRN Electronic Journal, 101--146. http://robots.law.miami.edu/2014/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Calo-Robotics-and-the-New-Cyberlaw.pdf

Google Scholar

[4]

Cavoukian, A. 2009. Privacy by Design -- The 7 Foundational Principles. Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. https://www.iab.org/wp-content/IAB-uploads/2011/03/fred_carter.pdf

Google Scholar

[5]

Doctorow, C. 2014. Why it is not possible to regulate robots here. The Guardian Technology Blog, Robots, April 2 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2014/apr/02/why-it-is-not-possible-to-regulate-robots

Google Scholar

[6]

Gips, J. 2011. Towards the Ethical Robot. In Machine Ethics, M. Anderson and S. L. Anderson, Eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 244--253.

Google Scholar

[7]

IRF -- International Federation of Robotics, 2013. World Robotics Report 2013.

Google Scholar

[8]

Langheinrich, M. 2005. Personal Privacy in Ubiquitous Computing: Tools and System Support. Dissertation submitted to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich. http://e-collection.library.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:28011/eth-28011-01.pdf

Google Scholar

[9]

Lederer S., Hong, J. I., Key, A. D., and Landay, J. A. 2004. Personal Privacy through Understanding and Action: Five Pitfalls for Designers. Journal of Personal and Ubiquitious Computing 8, 6, 440--454.

Crossref

Google Scholar

[10]

Mayer-Schönberger, V. and Cukier, K. 2013. Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work and Think. HMH Books, Boston, MA and New York, NY.

Google Scholar

[11]

Smith, H. J., Dinev, T., & Xu, H. 2011. Information privacy research: an interdisciplinary review. MIS Quarterly 35, 4, 989--1016.

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[12]

Veruggio, G. 2007. EURON Robotics Roadmap. http://www.roboethics.org/index_file/Roboethics%20Roadmap%20Rel.1.2.pdf

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Shinohara MSakamoto DOno TYoung J(2023)Understanding Privacy-friendly Design of Robot EyesProceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction10.1145/3623809.3623829(133-141)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3623809.3623829
Stock-Homburg RKnof MKirchhoff JHeinisch JEbert ABusch PDavid KWendt JDöhmann Ivon Stryk OHannig M(2023)Dienstleistungsroboter im Handel – Einsatzmöglichkeiten und verantwortungsbewusster EinsatzDigitalisierung im Vertrieb10.1007/978-3-658-38433-3_21(533-568)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38433-3_21
Aggarwal ARanjan SMerkle LDoyle MSheard JSoh LDorn B(2022)How do Undergraduate Students Reason about Ethical and Algorithmic Decision-Making?Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - Volume 110.1145/3478431.3499412(488-494)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478431.3499412
Show More Cited By

RoboCode-Ethicists: Privacy-friendly robots, an ethical responsibility of engineers?
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Embedded and cyber-physical systems
2. Computing methodologies
  1. Artificial intelligence
    1. Planning and scheduling

Recommendations

RoboCode-Ethicists: Privacy-friendly robots, an ethical responsibility of engineers?
WebSci '15: Proceedings of the ACM Web Science Conference

This article asks why engineers building robots should consider privacy aspects when programming their gadgets. We start with a definition of robots, differentiating active, social robots from passive, non-social robots. We then discuss the related ...
Mind the gap: responsible robotics and the problem of responsibility
Abstract
The task of this essay is to respond to the question concerning robots and responsibility—to answer for the way that we understand, debate, and decide who or what is able to answer for decisions and actions undertaken by increasingly interactive, ...
Technology as moral proxy: autonomy and paternalism by design
ETHICS '14: Proceedings of the IEEE 2014 International Symposium on Ethics in Engineering, Science, and Technology

In this paper I argue that in cases where technologies provide material answers to moral questions that arise in the use context, they can and should be characterized as moral proxies acting on behalf of a person. Because of this we can accurately ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

NS Ethics '15: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Ethics in Networked Systems Research

August 2015

40 pages

ISBN:9781450335416

DOI:10.1145/2793013

General Chair:
Ben Zevenbergen
University of Oxford, UK

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 21 August 2015

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

SIGCOMM '15

Sponsor:

SIGCOMM

SIGCOMM '15: ACM SIGCOMM 2015 Conference

August 21, 2015

London, United Kingdom

Acceptance Rates

NS Ethics '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 11 of 11 submissions, 100%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 11 of 11 submissions, 100%

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

10
Total Citations
View Citations
830
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)45
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)6

Reflects downloads up to 13 Sep 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Shinohara MSakamoto DOno TYoung J(2023)Understanding Privacy-friendly Design of Robot EyesProceedings of the 11th International Conference on Human-Agent Interaction10.1145/3623809.3623829(133-141)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3623809.3623829
Stock-Homburg RKnof MKirchhoff JHeinisch JEbert ABusch PDavid KWendt JDöhmann Ivon Stryk OHannig M(2023)Dienstleistungsroboter im Handel – Einsatzmöglichkeiten und verantwortungsbewusster EinsatzDigitalisierung im Vertrieb10.1007/978-3-658-38433-3_21(533-568)Online publication date: 11-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38433-3_21
Aggarwal ARanjan SMerkle LDoyle MSheard JSoh LDorn B(2022)How do Undergraduate Students Reason about Ethical and Algorithmic Decision-Making?Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - Volume 110.1145/3478431.3499412(488-494)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478431.3499412
Mahler T(2022)Regulating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)Law and Artificial Intelligence10.1007/978-94-6265-523-2_26(521-540)Online publication date: 6-Jul-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-523-2_26
Khan WFadziso T(2020)Ethical Issues on Utilization of AI, Robotics and Automation TechnologiesAsian Journal of Humanity, Art and Literature10.18034/ajhal.v7i2.5217:2(79-90)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2020
https://doi.org/10.18034/ajhal.v7i2.521
Ulhøi JNørskov S(2020)Extending the Conceptualization of Performability with Cultural Sustainability: The Case of Social RoboticsHandbook of Advanced Performability Engineering10.1007/978-3-030-55732-4_4(89-104)Online publication date: 17-Nov-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55732-4_4
Ramirez-Benavides KVega AGuerrero L(2019)Social Robotics Guidelines2019 IV Jornadas Costarricenses de Investigación en Computación e Informática (JoCICI)10.1109/JoCICI48395.2019.9105272(1-7)Online publication date: Aug-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/JoCICI48395.2019.9105272
Villaronga EAlbo-Canals J(2018)Implications of the Google’s US 8,996,429 B1 Patent in Cloud Robotics-Based Therapeutic ResearchesService Robots10.5772/intechopen.70279Online publication date: 4-Jan-2018
https://doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.70279
Tamò-Larrieux ATamò-Larrieux A(2018)ConclusionDesigning for Privacy and its Legal Framework10.1007/978-3-319-98624-1_11(245-254)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98624-1_11
Tamò-Larrieux ATamò-Larrieux A(2018)Setting the StageDesigning for Privacy and its Legal Framework10.1007/978-3-319-98624-1_1(1-17)Online publication date: 4-Nov-2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98624-1_1

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Cited By

Recommendations