On 2018 February the 16th, Jose Luis Pons, the INBOTS project coordinator attended to a radio interview at the Spanish national radio station where he had the opportunity to bring up some of the main matters that set the surge of INBOTS project.
A brief resume:
In the 21st century we are witnessing the greatest technological transformation since the Neolithic. The multiplication of robots, the expansion of artificial intelligence and intelligent, autonomous and decision-making systems, poses profound social and economic changes and a range of problems that require a deep ethical analysis, as it is already being done in other fields such as biotechnology.
Imagine the situation: an autonomous car has to choose between hitting a child on the road or hitting and bumping several pedestrians on the sidewalk…
What to do?
Who assumes responsibility for the negligent conduct of a humanoid?
Do robots that replace workers have to pay social security contributions?
Should they be treated as “electronic persons” with rights and obligations?
What are the ethical limits of device implants in our organism?
INBOTS stands for the European project Inclusive Robotics for a Better Society, coordinated by the Cajal Institute of the CSIC, which will try to answer many of these questions. In the program we interviewed its coordinator, José Luis Pons, director of the Neurorehabilitation Group of the Department of Functional and Systems Neurobiology of the Cajal Institute of the CSIC.