"Tufts, Navy explore robotic technology" by Callum Borchers | Globe Staff June 16, 2014
Tufts University and the Navy are partnering on a research project with a goal to develop robots that can think for themselves, making moral judgments and performing tasks according to how they weigh right, wrong, and the gray in between, without people having to instruct them.
On the battlefield, the ability to reason could enable a robot programmed to transport medical supplies to abort its mission and treat a wounded soldier it encounters along the way. A drone sent to strike an enemy stronghold could hold its fire if it detects civilians in the area — or decide to shoot anyway if there is imminent danger to American troops.
I'd rather they just not use them.
In nonmilitary settings, a thinking robot ordered not to touch patients in a hospital could make an exception to assist an elderly man who had fallen down. It could even police the ethical behavior of humans in a workplace.
Did you see that? A robot overseer, a ROBOCOP if you will! It's Elysium!
The prospect of such high-level artificial intelligence is both exciting and slightly creepy, acknowledged Matthias Scheutz, a computer science professor at Tufts who will serve as principal investigator on the project. But he contended that wiring robots with some kind of moral compass will be critical as machines play larger roles in everyday life....
More than slightly, you sick f***.
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