Plenty of clever and famous people are worried robots will kill us all - Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Nick Bostrom have all publicly fretted about whether artificial intelligence will lead to the extinction of homo sapiens.
The future of humanity is the most exciting, headline grabbing topic in roboethics - the ethics of robotics. It's also slightly hysterical.
A new organisation is more concerned with the near term - and it's much more interesting.
The Responsible Robotics Foundation aims to address the "urgent societal issues" raised by the robotic revolution, whether that's in elderly care, agriculture, transport, defence, policing or (their example) "making and serving cocktails".
As explained by Noel Sharkey, an eminent British roboticist who is a co-founder of the foundation, it's not just about the impact of robots on jobs (although that is a concern), or coming up with artificial intelligence that can make moral decisions, like whether to crash your driverless car and kill you to avoid a school bus full of children.
Instead, it's about making sure the design and programming of robots is itself ethical. And, eventually, developing "a socially responsible attitude to robotics".
Take the example of a companion robot for the elderly. Its purpose is to monitor and keep safe its owner.
But what does that mean for that person's privacy if that robot is monitoring loo visits and baths? And does the presence of a robot mean that person's human family is less likely to visit?
Does a caregiver robot which lifts patients from beds and wheelchairs and which is designed to look like a bear (this is a real thing - the RO-BEAR - made in Japan, predictably) rob elderly people of their dignity?
These are good questions to be asking. Sharkey's point is that no-one is.
The foundation aims to fill the gap, by lobbying governments (in the UK and the EU), engaging the general public, conducting research and advising the companies developing robots.
The goal isn't a set of prescriptive rules: "We want to be regulation light, because regulation can stifle innovation," Sharkey says.
Iron Man. Pic: UMA/REX Shutterstock
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