Robotic Nudges: The Ethics of Engineering a More Socially Just Human Being.
Robots are becoming an increasingly pervasive feature of our personal lives. As a result, there is growing importance placed on examining what constitutes appropriate behavior when they interact with human beings. In this paper, we discuss whether companion robots should be permitted to "nudge" their human users in the direction of being "more ethical". More specifically, we use Rawlsian principles of justice to illustrate how robots might nurture "socially just" tendencies in their human counterparts. Designing technological artifacts in such a way to influence human behavior is already well-established but merely because the practice is commonplace does not necessarily resolve the ethical issues associated with its implementation.
Director of Graduate Research Ethics Programs, School of Public Policy and Office of Graduate Studies, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA. borenstein@gatech.edu.
Jason
J
Borenstein
School of Interactive Computing, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA. arkin@gatech.edu.
Ron
R
Arkin
D004738:Engineering / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D035863:Moral Development; D009014:Morals; D012371:Robotics / Q000941:ethics*; D012935:Social Justice
Autonomy; Design ethics; Nudges; Paternalism; Rawls; Robot companions; Robot ethics; Social justice