Ethics of artificial intelligence

The ethics of artificial intelligence is the part of the ethics of technology specific to robots and other artificially intelligent beings. It is typically divided into roboethics, a concern with the moral behavior of humans as they design, construct, use and treat artificially intelligent beings, and machine ethics, which is concerned with the moral behavior of artificial moral agents (AMAs).

The term "robot ethics" (sometimes "roboethics") refers to the morality of how humans design, construct, use and treat robots and other artificially intelligent beings. It considers both how artificially intelligent beings may be used to harm humans and how they may be used to benefit humans.

Robot rights are the moral obligations of society towards its machines, similar to human rights or animal rights. These may include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression and equality before the law. The issue has been considered by the Institute for the Future and by the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry.

Experts disagree whether specific and detailed laws will be required soon or safely in the distant future. Glenn McGee reports that sufficiently humanoid robots may appear by 2020.Ray Kurzweil sets the date at 2029. Another group of scientists meeting in 2007 supposed that at least 50 years had to pass before any sufficiently advanced system would exist.

The rules for the 2003 Loebner Prize competition envisioned possibility of robots having rights of their own:

61. If, in any given year, a publicly available open source Entry entered by the University of Surrey or the Cambridge Center wins the Silver Medal or the Gold Medal, then the Medal and the Cash Award will be awarded to the body responsible for the development of that Entry. If no such body can be identified, or if there is disagreement among two or more claimants, the Medal and the Cash Award will be held in trust until such time as the Entry may legally possess, either in the United States of America or in the venue of the contest, the Cash Award and Gold Medal in its own right.

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