Horizon Information Portal

LIU Libraries

Alphabetical and Call Number

Moral machines : teaching robots right from wrong /

by Wallach, Wendell, 1946-

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009.

Computers -- Social aspects.

Computers -- Moral and ethical aspects.

xi, 275 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-262) and index.

From the Publisher: Computers are already approving financial transactions, controlling electrical supplies, and driving trains. Soon, service robots will be taking care of the elderly in their homes, and military robots will have their own targeting and firing protocols. Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach argue that as robots take on more and more responsibility, they must be programmed with moral decision-making abilities, for our own safety. Taking a fast paced tour through the latest thinking about philosophical ethics and artificial intelligence, the authors argue that even if full moral agency for machines is a long way off, it is already necessary to start building a kind of functional morality, in which artificial moral agents have some basic ethical sensitivity. But the standard ethical theories don't seem adequate and more socially engaged and engaging robots will be needed. As the authors show, the quest to build machines that are capable of telling right from wrong has begun. Moral Machines is the first book to examine the challenge of building artificial moral agents, probing deeply into the nature of human decision making and ethics.

Why machine morality? -- Engineering morality -- Does humanity want computers making moral decisions? -- Can (ro)bots really be moral? -- Philosophers, engineers, and the design of AMAs-- Top-down morality -- Bottom-up and developmental approaches -- Merging top-down and bottom-up -- Beyond vaporware? -- Beyond reason -- A more human-like AMA -- Dangers, rights, and responsibilities.

9780195374049 (cloth : alk. paper)

0195374045 (cloth : alk. paper)

Horizon Information Portal 3.06.A

Powered by Dynix

© 2001-2004 Dynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal