Am I a cylon? They may not look like this, but there’s a new batch of social robots about to pop up in homes around the world.
Gleb Garanich/Reuters
Social robots have exploded into the market in recent years, but what can they really do?
Should we act to prevent this from ever happening?
Armed robot via shutterstock.com
Machines that can target and kill people without human intervention or accountability pose a moral threat to the world.
What if robots turn against us?
Robot and skull via shutterstock.com
The threat from dangerous AI systems is vastly underappreciated and under-researched. If we don’t study them, we can’t fight them – or prevent them.
An ethical robot – as science fiction.
exo_duz/flickr
We are approaching the time when robots in our daily lives will be making decisions about how to act. What guidelines should we give them?
Demoted to the background by benign automation?
EPA/JUAN CARLOS HIDALGO
A Brave New World of worklessness and a universal wage is attracting advocates across the political spectrum.
Mclek/Shutterstock
Science fiction provides a valuable resource from which the public view of AI can be assessed.
Your friendly AI helper could be available on many devices, from your robot at work to even your smartphone.
Shutterstock/Iakobchuk Viacheslav
Imagine a world in which helper robots live with us, get us through the day and become our trusted friend. Well, science fiction is becoming science fact.
Nao - a robot created for companionship.
Jiuguang Wang/wikimedia
Robots should be designed so that even vulnerable users know that they are machines. But how do we create something engaging that is so obviously artificial?
Who owns your thoughts? And other important questions raised by technology.
Hands and brain via shutterstock.com
New and imagined digital technologies have important ethical implications. We should devise relevant social norms through a high-profile, public, collaborative process.
Could a robot raise a child without the need for a mother?
Shutterstock/Linda Bucklin
In the future some humans may be born without either a mother or father as we now know them, and with no other humans around to bring them up.
The computers of tomorrow are being taught to learn, reason and recognise emotions.
Tatiana Shepeleva/shutterstock
Computers are taking over our jobs, but this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
Latest sex gadget?
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Being intimate with artificially animated humanoids is not that new.
The surgeon and the robotic arm will work together on a hip replacement.
Stryker
Thousands of hip replacement operations are performed each year, but today is the first time in Australia that a robot will help with the surgery.
RCH patient, Miles, working with NAO.
Alvin Aquino/RCH
The advent of social robots is giving rise to new possibilities in paediatric health care. But will they replace human specialists?
Is this robot refusing a human order?
Jiuguang Wang
How can we humans avoid harmful results of robot obedience?
Is this a vision of the future?
Robot worker image via shutterstock.com
In the past, technology both destroyed and created jobs. Is that trend ending?
Automation could generate tremendous wealth. A UBI gives some of it back.
Shutterstock/Demonnew
A Universal Basic Income is essentially free money for everyone, no strings attached. And it could be the perfect response to rising unemployment due to automation.
What are you thinking? Robots and humans working together need to understand – and even trust – each other.
NASA Johnson/flickr
People and machines need to be able to interact and communicate effectively. Right now we – and they – can’t. But without that, we risk missing the potential benefits of collaboration.
Adao/Shutterstock
Robots can explore where humans fear to tread.
A robot for an MP – who’d vote for that?
Shutterstock/Mombo
If a machine can write a speech for a politician, why not go the next step and replace the elected human with a programmed robot?