CodeX Fellow Jerry Kaplan will present “The Devil Made Me Do It — Computational Ethics for Robots.” October 26 at 11:00 a.m. to noon (west coast time) at McCullough Building room 115  (Stanford University).

 

“Here is information from the event announcement.” 

“Before we set robots and other autonomous systems loose in the world, we need to ensure that they will adhere to basic moral principles and human social conventions. This is easier said than done.

Science fiction writer Issac Asimov famously proposed three laws of Robotics:

1.  A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2.   A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3.   A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Less well known was the purpose of Asimov’s proposal: to point out that these simple rules are woefully inadequate as a design criteria for building ethical robots. So if his laws aren’t sufficient, what is?

Join me as we window shop through two millennia of moral theories to find a suitable foundation for the emerging discipline of “Computational Ethics” — and explore the darkly hilarious ways these theories often fail in practice!

Come to this event put on by SAILS and the Robotics Seminar for this fascinating talk by Jerry Kaplan. Co-sponsored by SPICE and LST. Lunch will be provided. Register below for free and guarantee your lunch spot.”

REGISTER for this free lunch event

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SAILS Website and Social Media

> More Jerry Kaplan: here.

 

ALSO COMING UP:

October 30: 12:45 pm to 2:00  West Coast. Introducing the Stanford Computational Policy Lab.
Register here.

November 7: 12:45 pm – 2:00 pm. West Coast.: One Giant Leap for Machinekind: Generative Adversarial Networks and the Next Age of Tech Regulation. Stanford Law School Room 190. Free, lunch provided.
Register here.

 

Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX at the Stanford Center Center for Legal Informatics, and a freelance journalist. She is a member of the California Bar. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu. Twitter: @MonicaBay.

Cover images: Cliparts.com.