Putting Ethics into the Machine (Part 2) - Netopia

'It's not a matter of there being a set of ethics for machines and another for human beings; we argue that there is just one thing called ethics. We want to make sure that machines have this ethics built into them,' says Professor Susan Anderson, who says this needs to be an exhaustive process. 'In order to try to capture the ethical principles needed we need to have a dialogue with the machine that is centred just around whatever the domain is that the machine will be functioning in, and try to discover the ethically-relevant features that the machine will have to encounter or deal with, the prima facie duties that the machine should be aware of and the decision principles that in the last analysis should govern its behaviour.' Professor Anderson says that in the course of an'interactive dialogue' between the machine and one or more ethicists, the machine would be able to'tease out' ethical elements that are relevant to its domain. 'Like, could someone be harmed?