Police Robots

The U.S. military has given nearly 1,000 robots to police departments around the country. This means most police robots are ex-military. Young readers will walk through the history of robots teaming up with those who bravely wear the badge. They can decide for themselves if they think robots belong on the beat.

Robots aren’t just made for sci-fi thrillers—they’re on the real frontlines. Military and police use robots to perform operations that are impossible or too dangerous for humans to do. Readers will enjoy this in-depth look into the world of military and police robots, from their history to the newest technology available. How can robots help police? How will robots be used in the future? This volume addresses these questions and more through easy to understand text and fascinating facts. Color photographs bring readers behind the caution tape to learn all about military and police robots.

Social institutions emerge from social practices which coordinate activities by the explicit statement of rules, goals, and values. When artificial social actors are introduced into the physical and symbolic space of institutions, will this affect or transform institutional structures and practices, and how can social robotics as an interdisciplinary endeavor contribute to the ability of our institutions to perform their functions in society? This book presents the proceedings of Robophilosophy 2022, the 5th in the biennial Robophilosophy conference series, held in Helsinki, Finland, from 16 to 19 August 2022. The theme of this edition of the conference was Social Robots in Social Institutions, and it featured international multidisciplinary research from the humanities and social sciences concerning social robotics. The 63 papers, 41 workshop papers and 5 posters included in this book are divided into 4 sections: plenaries, sessions, workshops and posters, with the 41 papers in the ‘Sessions’ section grouped into 13 subdivisions including elderly care, healthcare, law, education and art, as well as ethics and religion. These papers explore the anticipated conceptual and practical changes which will come about from the introduction of social robotics into public and private institutions, such as public services, legal systems, social and healthcare services or educational institutions. Offering an exploration of the societal significance of social robots for the future of social institutions, the book will be of interest to both researchers in robotics and to those working in social institutions and enterprises.

A social robot is a robot that interacts and communicates with humans or other autonomous physical agents by following social behaviors and rules attached to its role. We seem to accept the use of robots that perform dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs. But how far do we want to go with the automation of care for children and the elderly, or the killin

The only book of its kind to look at how our legal system needs to change to accommodate a world in which machines, in addition to people, make decisions. For years, robots were solely a matter of science fiction. Today, artificial intelligence technologies serve to accelerate our already fast-paced lives even further. From Apple's Siri to the Google Car to GPS, machines and technologies that make decisions and take action without direct human supervision have become commonplace in our daily lives. As a result, laws must be amended to protect companies that produce robots and the people that buy and use them. This book provides an extensive examination of how numerous legal areas—including liability, traffic, zoning, and international and constitutional law—must adapt to the widespread use of artificial intelligence in nearly every area of our society. The author scrutinizes the laws governing such fields as transportation, medicine, law enforcement, childcare, and real estate development.

Ethics for Robots describes and defends a method for designing and evaluating ethics algorithms for autonomous machines, such as self-driving cars and search and rescue drones. Derek Leben argues that such algorithms should be evaluated by how effectively they accomplish the problem of cooperation among self-interested organisms, and therefore, rather than simulating the psychological systems that have evolved to solve this problem, engineers should be tackling the problem itself, taking relevant lessons from our moral psychology. Leben draws on the moral theory of John Rawls, arguing that normative moral theories are attempts to develop optimal solutions to the problem of cooperation. He claims that Rawlsian Contractarianism leads to the ‘Maximin’ principle – the action that maximizes the minimum value – and that the Maximin principle is the most effective solution to the problem of cooperation. He contrasts the Maximin principle with other principles and shows how they can often produce non-cooperative results. Using real-world examples – such as an autonomous vehicle facing a situation where every action results in harm, home care machines, and autonomous weapons systems – Leben contrasts Rawlsian algorithms with alternatives derived from utilitarianism and natural rights libertarianism. Including chapter summaries and a glossary of technical terms, Ethics for Robots is essential reading for philosophers, engineers, computer scientists, and cognitive scientists working on the problem of ethics for autonomous systems.

This book describes real-world killer robots using a blend of perspectives. Overviews of technologies, such as autonomy and artificial intelligence, demonstrate how science enables these robots to be effective killers. Incisive analyses of social controversies swirling around the design and use of killer robots reveal that science, alone, will not govern their future. Among those disputes is whether fully-autonomous, robotic weapons should be banned. Examinations of killers from the golem to Frankenstein's monster reveal that artificially-created beings like them are precursors of real 21st century killer robots. This book laces the death and destruction caused by all these killers with science and humor. The seamless combination of these elements produces a deeper and richer understanding of the robots around us.

Military robots and other, potentially autonomous robotic systems such as unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) could soon be introduced to the battlefield. Look further into the future and we may see autonomous micro- and nanorobots armed and deployed in swarms of thousands or even millions. This growing automation of warfare may come to represent a major discontinuity in the history of warfare: humans will first be removed from the battlefield and may one day even be largely excluded from the decision cycle in future high-tech and high-speed robotic warfare. Although the current technological issues will no doubt be overcome, the greatest obstacles to automated weapons on the battlefield are likely to be legal and ethical concerns. Armin Krishnan explores the technological, legal and ethical issues connected to combat robotics, examining both the opportunities and limitations of autonomous weapons. He also proposes solutions to the future regulation of military robotics through international law.