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Analysis

Can We Teach Robots Ethics?

Analysis

BBC

News, Politics

4.61K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2017

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

From driverless cars to "carebots", machines are entering the realm of right and wrong. Should an autonomous vehicle prioritise the lives of its passengers over pedestrians? Should a robot caring for an elderly woman respect her right to life ahead of her right to make her own decisions? And who gets to decide? The challenges facing artificial intelligence are not just technical, but moral - and raise hard questions about what it means to be human.

Presenter: David Edmonds Producer: Simon Maybin.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

0:04.6

My name's Linda Davies and I commission podcast for BBC Sounds.

0:08.4

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

0:14.3

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

0:20.4

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

0:24.6

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

0:29.7

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected,

0:33.1

find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

0:36.4

This is the BBC.

0:40.5

Thanks for downloading analysis, the programme about the ideas behind the news.

0:45.0

This week David Edmonds asks can we teach robots ethics?

0:50.0

This is quite a strange feeling I have to say are you nervous?

0:56.0

No because I've done this like so many times.

0:59.0

You almost get sort of conditioned to it in a way that you can just be very, very relaxed.

1:05.4

I'm glad you can. I'm in a car with Dr Amy Rimmer.

1:10.5

We're driving the short trip home from the gym.

1:13.0

It's a typical journey with one difference.

1:17.0

This is so weird.

1:19.0

So the steering wheel has just turned sharply to the right and we're coming up to a stop now and

1:27.6

Amy is not doing anything it's stopped we're going round around about so it's detected the stop sign.

1:34.0

It's put the indicator on itself.

1:37.0

It's indicating that we're heading left.

...

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