How can we ensure robots make the right decisions?

By Sandor Veres    
Dec 9 2014

Your autonomous vacuum cleaner cleans your floors and there is no great harm if it occasionally bounces into things or picks up a button or a scrap of paper with a phone number. But then again this latter case is irritating – it would be preferable if the machine was capable of noticing there was something written on it and alert you. A human cleaner would do that.

If your child has a toy robot, you are not worried much about its wheels, arms or eyes going wild occasionally during play. It can be just more fun for the kids. You know the toy has been designed not to have enough force to cause any harm.

But what about a factory robot designed for picking up cars pieces and fitting them into a car? Clearly you’d not want to be nearby when it goes berserk. You know it’s been pre-programmed to do particular tasks and it may not welcome your proximity. This kind of robot is often caged or barred-off, even for operating personnel. But what about the case of some future autonomous robot with which you need to work in order to assemble something, or complete some other task? You may think that if it is powerful enough to be useful, it may also be powerful enough to do you an unexpected injury

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Continua qui: https://forumblog.org/2014/12/how-can-we-ensure-robots-make-the-right-decisions/