blog.bioethics.net
a Nature Top 50 science blog from The American Journal of Bioethics
Entries from blog.bioethics.net tagged with 'robots'
The robots of 2007
Congratulations, Robot(s) M-430iA, you're the Robot of the Year, according to Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Sure, you're just an arm. And you effect a manner not unlike that of a pecking chicken. But you beat out a field that included competitors with seemingly much flashier functions... (read the rest)
Foreign Policy's 10 "missed" stories of 2007
Sure, the magazine's list includes items about topics such as borders, juntas and terrorism. But it also touches on transgenics, disease and robots: (descriptions from FP's site) #6 The American Heartland Grows Crops -- with Human Proteins Farmers have long experimented with crops bred to produce better yields, with few... (read the rest)
Speed reading the coverage of "Love and Sex With Robots"
The reviews of David Levy's book predicting human-robot marriage (and, um, other activities) are in and they're... skeptical: + In the New York Times, Robin Marantz Henig writes that her experiences in reporting a previous story about robots had "primed" her for Levy's thesis. That doesn't mean she's totally buying... (read the rest)
Following up: robot marriage, political (neuro)science and stem cell politics
Here are a few updates and extensions to earlier posts on blog.bioethics.net: And you thought gay marriage was controversial Back in October we posted an item about one researcher's speculation that human-robot marriage was at most 50 years away. Of course, this prompts the question that also sounds like a... (read the rest)
Bonding with robots
This week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Science includes a paper describing how toddlers bonded with a robot. Researchers at UC-San Diego placed a humanoid robot in a day care center for five months. And what they found is that the children seemed to bond and socialize with... (read the rest)
The state of our robotic overlords
On some days, it seems like robots are bound to put us all in boxes. On others, they just seem to be struggling to catch up. And today? Well, today is a little bit of both. Wired's Danger Room blog has been following an incident in South Africa where a... (read the rest)
And you thought gay marriage was controversial
Via Art Caplan comes this article in which a researcher at the University of Maastricht predicts that human/robot marriage could be no more than a few decades away: "My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," artificial intelligence... (read the rest)
Following up: databases, presidential health and robots
Here are a few updates and extensions to recent posts on blog.bioethics.net: Caught in the database Every week seems to bring a new story about someone getting caught, found out or otherwise tagged unexpectantly by geographic databases. The NY Post reported recently that a carpentry supervisor for the NYC... (read the rest)
Living, dying and playing with robots
This year's DARPATech conference (a sort of show-and-not-really-tell affair) features a portable surgical robot called the Trauma Pod. The device allows surgeons to operate from afar, but it also can operate independently to provide accompanying procedures such as intubation. As Popular Mechanics reports, much of the surgeon's remote role will... (read the rest)
Asimov would be pleased
South Korea has announced that they are drawing up a code of robot ethics, to prevent humans from abusing robots, and robots from abusing humans. Asimov would be so pleased! While it's unclear if the code of ethics will follow Asimov's laws of robotics (an idea their convened panelists... (read the rest)
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