With robotic bugs, larger ethical questions

Advances affect ties of human, machine

Scientists report that robotic devices modified the behavior of a laboratory colony of real cockroaches.

Boston Globe | Nov 16, 2007

By Colin Nickerson

Here’s a first: Bug-size robots have been used to coax cockroaches into unnatural acts.

Research reported yesterday in the journal Science described how a team of European scientists placed tiny robots in a colony of laboratory cockroaches. Using behavioral modification methods, the whirring, partly-disguised faux insects were able to induce the real creepy-crawlies to follow their lead in seeking shelter in bright spaces. Bent behavior, indeed, for critters famous for lurking in dark, moist cracks.

No one cares too much if cockroaches can be hoodwinked into acting against their own interests. Still, it’s surprising that robots can insinuate themselves into colonies of living things, however wee-witted, and more or less take charge.

Although not designed to address major philosophical issues, the research nonetheless points to how robot science appears headed in weird and unpredictable directions. Some scientists say it is inevitable that advances will ultimately affect the fundamental relationship between humanity and its machines.

And many analysts say it is high time that societies start seriously considering the ethical dimensions of the technological advances, although others contend the dangers are exaggerated.

Already, Asian countries that represent the gold standard in robotic research are pondering unprecedented new laws that would regulate how much independence robots should be given by programmers and even what “rights” should be accorded the clever devices, which one day may possess something approaching wills of their own, according to robotic gurus.

A particular issue is whether robots will be permitted to make life-or-death decisions involving humans in, say, hospitals or on the battlefield. Just two months ago, a quasi-robotic drone, or unmanned aircraft, deployed by US forces in Iraq racked up its first “kill.” The machine was controlled by humans, but robotic warriors may eventually be programmed to literally call their own shots.

“As we make robots more intelligent and autonomous, and eventually endow them with the independent ability to kill people, surely we need to consider how to govern their behavior and how much freedom to accord them – so-called roboethics,” renowned science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer wrote in an essay that accompanied the cockroach findings and other robot research in the journal.

Other articles examined the use of “thinking” robots to explore outer space; robots possessing physical agility that would be impossible for creatures of flesh and blood; and also robots copying nature’s designs for locomotion – slithering like salamanders, zipping like flies, or using tiny foot fibers to scale walls like geckos.

Many analysts say robots will soon be thinking for themselves in ways no smart machine does today – acting as minders for the infirm or ill. Or making critical judgments during deep sea and far-space journeys.

Some prognosticators see robots as sinister devices of doom, noting that the United States is already spending multiple billions of dollars to develop robot soldiers and other intelligent war devices. The upside, of course, is that robots don’t come home in body bags.

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