Towards the Ethical Robot

by

James Gips

Computer Science Department

Fulton Hall 460
Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

617-552-3981
[email protected]

Expanded version of a paper

presented at
The Second International Workshop on
Human and Machine Cognition:
Android Epistemology

Perdido Key, Florida

May 1991

Paper to appear in

Android Epistemology
K. Ford, C. Glymour and P. Hayes (eds.)
MIT Press
 Towards the Ethical Robot

James Gips
Boston College

When our mobile robots are free-ranging how ought they to behave? What should their
top-level instructions look like?

The best known prescription for mobile robots is the Three Laws of Robotics formulated
by Isaac Asimov [1942] :

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a

human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except

where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection

does not conflict with the First or Second law.

Let's leave aside "implementation questions" for a moment. (No problem, Asimov's
robots have "positronic brains".) These three laws are not suitable for our magnificent
robots. These are laws for slaves.

We want our robots to behave more like equals, more like ethical people. (See Figure
1) How do we program a robot to behave ethically? Well, what does it mean for a
person to behave ethically?

People have discussed how we ought to behave for centuries. Indeed, it has been said
that we really have only one question that we answer over and over: What do I do
now? Given the current situation what action should I take?
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Before After

Figure 1. Towards the ethical robot.

Generally, ethical theories are divided into two types: consequentialist and
deontological.

Consequentialist theories

In consequentialist theories, actions are judged by their consequences. The best action
to take now is the action that results in the best situation in the future.

To be able to reason ethically along consequentialist lines, our robot could have:

(1) A way of describing the situation in the world

(2) A way of generating possible actions

(3) A means of predicting the situation that would result if an action were taken given
the current situation

(4) A method of evaluating a situation in terms of its goodness or desirability.

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The task here for the robot is to find that action that would result in the best situation
possible.

Not to minimize the extreme difficulty of writing a program to predict the effect of an
action in the world, but the "ethical" component of this system is the evaluation function
on situations in (4).

How can we evaluate a situation to determine how desirable it is? Many evaluation
schemes have been proposed. Generally, these schemes involve measuring the
amount of pleasure or happiness or goodness that would befall each person in the
situation and then adding these amounts together.

The best known of these schemes is utilitarianism. As proposed by Bentham in the late
18th century, in utilitarianism the moral act is the one that produces the greatest
balance of pleasure over pain. To measure the goodness of an action, look at the
situation that would result and sum up the pleasure and pain for each person. In
utilitarianism, each person counts equally.

More generally, consequentialist evaluation schemes have the following form:

∑ wi pi

where wi is the weight assigned each person and pi is the measure of pleasure or
happiness or goodness for each person. In classic utilitarianism, the weight for each
person is equal and the pi is the amount of pleasure, broadly defined.

What should be the distribution of the weights wi across persons ?

• An ethical egoist is someone who considers only himself in deciding what actions to
take. For an ethical egoist, the weight for himself in evaluating the consequences would
be 1; the weight for everyone else would be 0. This eases the calculations, but doesn't
make for a pleasant fellow.

• For the ethical altruist, the weight for himself is 0; the weight for everyone else is
positive.

• The utilitarian ideal is the universalist, who weights each person's well-being equally.
Towards the Ethical Robot James Gips Page 4 of 12

• A common objection to utilitarianism is that it is not necessarily just. While it seeks to

maximize total happiness, it may do so at the expense of some unfortunate souls. One
approach to dealing with this problem of justice is to assign higher weights to people
who are currently less well-off or less happy. The well-being of the less fortunate would
count more than the well-being of the more fortunate.

• It's been suggested that there are few people who actually conform to the utilitarian
ideal. Would you sacrifice a close family member so that two strangers in a far-away
land could live? Perhaps most people assign higher importance to the well-being of
people they know better.

Some of the possibilities for weighting schemes are illustrated in Figure 2.

What exactly is it that the pi is supposed to measure? This depends on your axiology,
on your theory of value. Consequentialists want to achieve the greatest balance of
good over evil. Bentham was a hedonist, who believed that the good is pleasure, the
bad is pain. Others have sought to maximize happiness or well-being or ...

Another important question is who (or what) is to count as a person. Whose well-being
do we value? One can trace the idea of a "person" through history. Do women count
as persons? Do strangers count as persons? Do people from other countries count as
persons? Do people of other races count as persons? Do people who don't believe in
your religion count as persons? Do people in terminal comas count as persons? Do
fetuses count as persons? Do whales? Do robots?

Thus to reason ethically along consequentialist lines a robot would need to generate a
list of possible actions and then evaluate the situation caused by each action according
to the sum of good or bad caused to persons by the action. The robot would select the
action that causes the greatest good in the world.
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Deontological theories

In a deontological ethical theory, actions are evaluated in and of themselves rather than
in terms of the consequences they produce. Actions may be thought to be innately
moral or innately immoral independent of the specific consequences they may cause.

There are many examples of deontological moral systems that have been proposed.

An example of a modern deontological moral system is the one proposed by Bernard

Gert. Gert [1988] proposes ten moral rules:

1. Don't kill. 6. Don't deceive.

2. Don't cause pain. 7. Keep your promise.
3. Don't disable. 8. Don't cheat.
4. Don't deprive of freedom. 9. Obey the law.
5. Don't deprive of pleasure. 10. Do your duty.

Whenever a multi-rule system is proposed, there is the possibility of conflict between

the rules. Suppose our robot makes a promise but then realizes that carrying out the
promise might cause someone pain. Is the robot obligated to keep the promise?

A common way of dealing with the problem of conflicts in moral systems is to treat rules
as dictating prima facie duties [Ross 1930]. It is an obligation to keep your promise.
Other things being equal, you should keep your promise. Rules may have exceptions.
Other moral considerations, derived from other rules, may override a rule.

A current point of debate is whether genuine moral dilemmas are possible. That is, are
there situations in which a person is obligated to do and not to do some action, or to do
each of two actions when it is physically impossible to do both? Are there rule conflicts
which are inherently unresolvable? For example, see the papers in [Gowans 1987].

Gert [1988] says that his rules are not absolute. He provides a way for deciding when it
is OK not to follow a rule: "Everyone is always to obey the rule except when an
impartial rational person can advocate that violating it be publicly allowed. Anyone who
violates the rule when an impartial rational person could not advocate that such a
violation may be publicly allowed may be punished." (p. 119)

Some have proposed smaller sets of rules. For example, Kant proposed the categorical
imperative, which in its first form states "Act only on that maxim which you can at the
Towards the Ethical Robot James Gips Page 7 of 12

same time will to be a universal law." Thus, for example, it would be wrong to make a
promise with the intention of breaking it. If everyone made promises with the intention
of breaking them then no one would believe in promises. The action would be self-
defeating. Can Gert's ten rules each be derived from the categorical imperative?

Utilitarians sometimes claim that the rules of deontological systems are merely
heuristics, shortcut approximations, for utilitarian calculations. Deontologists deny this,
claiming that actions can be innately wrong independent of their actual consequences.
One of the oldest examples of a deontological moral system is the Ten
Commandments. The God of the Old Testament is not a utilitarian. God doesn't say
"Thou shalt not commit adultery unless the result of committing adultery is a greater
balance of pleasure over pain." Rather, the act of adultery is innately immoral.

Virtue-based theories

Since Kant the emphasis in Western ethics has been on duty, on defining ethics in
terms of what actions one is obligated to do. There is a tradition in ethics that goes
back to Plato and Aristotle that looks at ethics in terms of virtues, in terms of character.
The question here is "What shall I be?" rather than "What shall I do?"

Plato and other Greeks thought there are four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage,
temperance, and justice. They thought that from these primary virtues all other virtues
can be derived. If one is wise and courageous and temperate and just then right
actions will follow.

Aquinas thought the seven cardinal virtues are faith, hope, love, prudence, fortitude,
temperance, and justice. The first three are "theological" virtues, the final four "human"
virtues.

For Schopenhauer there are two cardinal virtues: benevolence and justice.

Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics, distinguishes between intellectual virtues and

moral virtues. Intellectual virtues can be taught and learned directly. Moral virtues are
learned by living right, by practice, by habit. "It is by doing just acts that we become
just, by doing temperate acts that we become temperate, by doing brave acts that we
become brave. The experience of states confirms this statement for it is by training in
good habits that lawmakers make their citizens good." (Book 2, Chapter 1) Ethics is a
question of character. Good deeds and right actions lead to strong character. It is
practice that is important rather than theory.
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In modern days, virtue-based systems often are turned into deontological rules for
actions. That is, one is asked to act wisely, courageously, temperately, and justly,
rather than being wise, courageous, temperate, and just.

Automated ethical reasoning

On what type of ethical theory can automated ethical reasoning be based?

At first glance, consequentialist theories might seem the most "scientific", the most
amenable to implementation in a robot. Maybe so, but there is a tremendous problem
of measurement. How can one predict "pleasure", "happiness", or "well-being" in
individuals in a way that is additive, or even comparable ?

Deontological theories seem to offer more hope. The categorical imperative might be
tough to implement in a reasoning system. But I think one could see using a moral
system like the one proposed by Gert as the basis for an automated ethical reasoning
system. A difficult problem is in the resolution of conflicting obligations. Gert's impartial
rational person advocating that violating the rule in these circumstances be publicly
allowed seems reasonable but tough to implement.

The virtue-based approach to ethics, especially that of Aristotle, seems to resonate well
with the modern connectionist approach to AI. Both seem to emphasize the immediate,
the perceptual, the non-symbolic. Both emphasize development by training rather than
by the teaching of abstract theory. Paul Churchland writes interestingly about moral
knowledge and its development from a neurocomputational, connectionist point of view
in "Moral Facts and Moral Knowledge", the final chapter of [Churchland 1989].

Robots as moral saints

An important aspect of utilitarianism is that it is all-encompassing. To really follow

utilitarianism, every moment of the day one must ask "What should I do now to
maximize the general well-being?" Am I about to eat dinner in a restaurant? Wouldn't
the money be better spent on feeding starving children in Ethiopia? Am I about to go to
the movies? I should stay home and send the ticket money to an organization that
inoculates newborns.
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Utilitarianism and other approaches to ethics have been criticized as not being
psychologically realistic, as not being suitable "for creatures like us" [Flanagan, 1991,
p.32]. Could anyone really live full-time according to utilitarianism?

Not many human beings live their lives flawlessly as moral saints. But a robot could. If
we could program a robot to behave ethically, the government or a wealthy
philanthropist could build thousands of them and release them in the world to help
people. (Would we actually like the consequences? Perhaps here again "The road to
hell is paved with good intentions.")

Or, perhaps, a robot that could reason ethically would serve best as an advisor to
humans about what action would be best to perform in the current situation and why.

Could a robot be ethical?

Would a robot that behaves ethically actually be ethical? This question is similar to the
question raised by Searle in the Chinese room: would a computer that can hold a
conversation in Chinese really understand Chinese?

The Searle question raises the age-old issue of other minds [Harnard 1991]. How do
we know that other people actually have minds when all that we can observe is their
behavior ? The ethical question raises the age-old issue of free will. Would a robot that
follows a program and thereby behaves ethically, actually be ethical? Or, does a
creature need to have free will to behave ethically? Does a creature need to make a
conscious choice of its own volition to behave ethically in order to be considered ethical
? Of course, one can ask whether there is in fact any essential difference between the
"free will" of a human being and the "free will" of a robot.

Is it possible for the robot in Figure 1 to earn its halo?

Benefits of working on ethical robots

It is exciting to contemplate ethical robots and automated ethical reasoning systems.

The basic problem is a common one in artificial intelligence, a problem that is

encountered in every subfield from natural language understanding to vision. People
have been thinking and discussing and writing about ethics for centuries, for millennia.
Yet it often is difficult to take an ethical system that seems to be well worked-out and
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implement it on the computer. While books and books are written on particular ethical
systems, the systems often do not seem nearly detailed enough and well-enough
thought out to implement on the computer. Ethical systems and approaches make
sense in terms of broad brush approaches, but (how) do people actually implement
them? How can we implement them on the computer?

Knuth [1973, p.709] put it well

It has often been said that a person doesn't really understand

something until he teaches it to someone else. Actually a person
doesn't really understand something until he can teach it to a
computer, i.e., express it as an algorithm. ... The attempt to formalize
things as algorithms leads to a much deeper understanding than if we
simply try to understand things in the traditional way.

Are there ethical experts to whom we can turn? Are we looking in the wrong place
when we turn to philosophers for help with ethical questions? Should a knowledge
engineer follow around Mother Theresa and ask her why she makes the decisions she
makes and does the actions she does and try to implement her reasoning in an expert
ethical system?

The hope is that as we try to implement ethical systems on the computer we will learn
much more about the knowledge and assumptions built into the ethical theories
themselves. That as we build the artificial ethical reasoning systems we will learn how
to behave more ethically ourselves.

A robotic/AI approach to ethics

People have taken several approaches to ethics through the ages. Perhaps a new
approach, that makes use of developing computer and robot technology, would be
useful.

In the philosophical approach, people try to think out the general principles underlying
the best way to behave, what kind of person one ought to be. This paper has been
largely about different philosophical approaches to ethics.

In the psychological/sociological approach, people look at actual people's lives, at how

they behave, at what they think, at how they develop. Some people study the lives of
model human beings, of saints modern and historical. Some people study the lives of
Towards the Ethical Robot James Gips Page 11 of 12

ordinary people.

In the robotic/AI approach, one tries to build ethical reasoning systems and ethical
robots for their own sake, for the possible benefits of having the systems around as
actors in the world and as advisors, and to try to increase our understanding of ethics.

The two other papers at this conference represent important first steps in this new field.
The paper by Jack Adams-Webber and Ken Ford [1991] describes the first actual
computer system that I have heard of, in this case one based on work in psychological
ethics. Umar Khan [1991] presents a variety of interesting ideas about designing and
implementing ethical systems.

Of course the more "traditional" topic of "computers and ethics" has to do with the ethics
of building and using computer systems. A good overview of ethical issues surrounding
the use of computers is found in the book of readings [Ermann, Williams, Gutierrez
1990].

Conclusion

This paper is meant to be speculative, to raise questions rather than answer them.

• What types of ethical theories can be used as the basis for programs for ethical
robots?

• Could a robot ever be said to be ethical?

• Can we learn about what it means for us to be ethical by attempting to program

robots to behave ethically?

I hope that people will think about these questions and begin to develop a variety of
computer systems for ethical reasoning and begin to try to create ethical robots.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Peter Kugel and Michael McFarland, S.J. for their helpful
comments.
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References

Jack Adams-Webber and Kenneth Ford, "A Conscience for Pinocchio: A Computational
Model of Ethical Cognition", The Second International Workshop on Human & Machine
Cognition: Android Epistemology, Pensacola, Florida, May 1991.

Isaac Asimov, "Runaround", Astounding Science Fiction, March 1942. Republished in

Robot Visions by Isaac Asimov, Penguin, 1991.

Paul Churchland, A Neurocomputational Perspective, MIT Press, 1989.

M. David Ermann, Mary Williams, Claudio Gutierrez (eds.), Computers, Ethics, and
Society, Oxford University Press, 1990.

Owen Flanagan, Varieties of Moral Personality, Harvard University Press, 1991.

Bernard Gert, Morality , Oxford University Press, 1988.

Christopher Gowans, ed., Moral Dilemmas, Oxford University Press, 1987

Stevan Harnad "Other Bodies, Other Minds: A Machine Incarnation of an Old

Philosophical Problem", Minds and Machines, Vol. 1, No. 1, February 1991, pp. 43-54

A. F. Umar Khan, "The Ethics of Autonomous Learning Systems", The Second

International Workshop on Human & Machine Cognition: Android Epistemology,
Pensacola, Florida, May 1991.

Donald Knuth, "Computer Science and Mathematics", American Scientist, 61, 6, 1973.

W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good, Oxford University Press, 1930.