Robots are beginning to look a lot like common parts of the society. With the fast paced development of technologies, artificial intelligence has raised concerns for scientists, thus, pushing them to launch an AI advocacy group.
Called the Foundation for Responsible Robotics (FRR), the group believes that the world is in the midst of a robot revolution, which governments and corporate firms see as beneficial to the economy.
The International Federation for Robotics says that by 2018, the number of robots will increase to 31 million. The robots will play key major roles in the industries of health care, food, human services, agriculture, nature and defense, among many others.
At present, some sectors are already turning to robots for some services, which only humans can exclusively perform in the past. In Japan, "care robots" are now being used in elderly care to provide companionship and perform lifting procedures for patients. With the country's aging population, scarcity of migrant workers and advancement in technology, who cannot see this coming?
Continuous advancement in robotics will also cause a major blow in the employment sector. For example, Australia has started to replace mine truckers with autonomous vehicles. Although mine owners can safely argue that the job is really dangerous for humans and that robots should do the job, they also cannot deny the amount of savings that the reduction in workforce has created for them.
With the rise of advantages of these innovations comes the surge of ethical concerns. The members of FRR made it clear that it is not their aim to hamper innovation, rather to guarantee that ethical issues that come along with these advancements are given due considerations and that human developers take responsibility for their creations.
FRR co-founder, Noel Sharkey from the University of Sheffield spoke at the launch of the advocacy group on Friday, Dec. 11. He said they also want legislators and the members of the public to be engaged in discussions about robotics and humanity's role in its advancement.
"We urgently need to promote responsibility for the robots embedded in our society," said Dr. Aimee van Wynsberghe, co-founder and President of FRR. She added that robots are as responsible as the humans who built it.
Humanity should ensure that the future development of robots is rooted from the goal of helping mankind and not just to achieve short-term personal gains. With this, van Wynsberghe concluded that policies concerning robots should reserve ethical and societal principles of fairness.
