When you start labeling Robots as criminal you will find humans trying their darndest to influence a robot to do criminal things instead of themselves.
And, funny enough, humans seem to be pretty good so far at influencing robots.
The distinction doesn't seem to be 'xor', but 'and'. The question of human criminality is unchanged, while they posit an additional criminality for the robot itself. The most interesting bit to me here is that there might be times where the human decision making is so diffuse that no humans are liable, but something can still be legally done if you hold the robot itself accountable.
I could imagine a robo equivalent to the 2008 financial crash, maybe a horrible transit accident or something, but where no single person or corporation is quite criminal enough to hold accountable, but the end result is still bad. In one world, all the people go "Oh hey, we weren't really punished" and do it again. In another world, you put the robot in "jail" and the people go "Oh shit, they took our property. That was expensive. Let's not do that anymore." ... optimistically.
I mean, in that situation they have even less incentive to fix things if you don't confiscate the robot... The precondition was "the human decision making is so diffuse that no humans are liable" after all.
In that case, you have three possibilities:
1. You don't confiscate/destroy the robot. BigCorp goes "hell yeah, cost of committing $crime is 0!" and continues.
2. You confiscate/destroy the robot. BigCorp goes "nice, we can make another for $5 - we'll take another 100,000 thanks" and continues.
3. You confiscate/destroy the robot. BigCorp goes "shit, that robot cost a ton of money - better work out a way to avoid doing that again in the future" and fixes the problem.
This seems like a total dodge. Before the Singularity (which hasn't happened yet), a machine that does something does so because some human or humans arranged for that. TFA is a way to get distracted by the machine and not address the human who set it in motion. Cui bono? Oh, probably some big firms who plan to release robots into the human and natural environments and don't want to be held liable when those robots harm humans and property.
There is an unfortunately large disconnect between the general public's understanding of robotics, and the reality of robotics. I don't know how to reduce it, and feel it's important to.
The hypothetical "how should a robot car decided which bystander to hit when it looses control" or similar trolley problems are so so so far off in the future. Right now autonomous cars can't even operate in inclement weather.
I do find the concept of "moral reasoning" in robots an interesting one, but again feel the author has skipped into the far further and missed more tractable questions. If moral reasoning were in place today, I think the likely decision of all autonomous cars would be to drive slower. Is saving a few minutes of a trip worth dramatically greater probability of fatality? US DOT found that speed limit increases from 55 to 65 MPH increase the likelihood of fatality by 24% once an accident occurred.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 41.0 ms ] threadAnd, funny enough, humans seem to be pretty good so far at influencing robots.
I could imagine a robo equivalent to the 2008 financial crash, maybe a horrible transit accident or something, but where no single person or corporation is quite criminal enough to hold accountable, but the end result is still bad. In one world, all the people go "Oh hey, we weren't really punished" and do it again. In another world, you put the robot in "jail" and the people go "Oh shit, they took our property. That was expensive. Let's not do that anymore." ... optimistically.
In that case, you have three possibilities:
1. You don't confiscate/destroy the robot. BigCorp goes "hell yeah, cost of committing $crime is 0!" and continues.
2. You confiscate/destroy the robot. BigCorp goes "nice, we can make another for $5 - we'll take another 100,000 thanks" and continues.
3. You confiscate/destroy the robot. BigCorp goes "shit, that robot cost a ton of money - better work out a way to avoid doing that again in the future" and fixes the problem.
The hypothetical "how should a robot car decided which bystander to hit when it looses control" or similar trolley problems are so so so far off in the future. Right now autonomous cars can't even operate in inclement weather.
I do find the concept of "moral reasoning" in robots an interesting one, but again feel the author has skipped into the far further and missed more tractable questions. If moral reasoning were in place today, I think the likely decision of all autonomous cars would be to drive slower. Is saving a few minutes of a trip worth dramatically greater probability of fatality? US DOT found that speed limit increases from 55 to 65 MPH increase the likelihood of fatality by 24% once an accident occurred.
https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa09028/re...