Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
6. The efficacy of software may depend on extra-functional features
such as its interface to the user and even on how often and for how
long the whole system (hardware and software) is in use.
7. Software running on a particular computer system can interact in
ways that are unforeseeable unless the programmers (or is it the
program testers or their managers?) understand completely the ef-
fect that the computer system itself might have on the functioning
of the software.
8. Software, including automated tools that assist with the develop-
ment of other software, may be downloaded at the click of an icon
in such a way that the user has no access to the program code or
to know its provenance, with the resulting use of anonymous soft-
ware. Who is responsible if the downloaded software is faulty? Its
own programmers, testers or managers, or those who decide to use
it, test its use or integrate it for use with their own programs?
9. Software may be adaptive, i.e., self-modifying. If it is faulty is it
the software itself which is to blame, for making the decisions as to
how to modify itself?
10. Software may itself be the result of a program (in the simplest case
the other program could be a compiler, but we might also be talk-
ing about genetic programming).
All of these observations/questions and more, pose insurmountable diffi-
culties for the traditional and now rather outdated view that identifiable
humans must be responsible for failings in software, and they illustrate
the difficulties faced by ethicists and lawyers who have the courage to step
into this intellectual minefield. So much for the views of the philoso-
phers. I am not sure that they add enough to our understanding of this
issue to compensate for the confusion they cause by offering us so many
aspects of ethics to think about.
Alongside the ethical questions relating to the responsibility for
wrongdoing there is, of course, the legal aspect. Not only are there ethi-
cal questions relating to the legal
rights
of robots, there are also important
questions concerning legal responsibility for the actions and decisions of
robots. One area of what will eventually fall within robotic law is already
in the process of being established, with some case law to support it. This
area involves situations in which robots are employed for tasks that have
