Tutorial at IROS 2022 - Ethical, Legal and User Perspectives on Robots and Systems (ELAUPORAS) – Assessments and Potential Measures - Rm16 (Room 510)

Tutorial Zoom Link 

https://uio.zoom.us/j/66716622115?pwd=b2dXdURVZEk4MXQ5OFdVbXZFOFlYQT09
Meeting ID: 667 1662 2115
Passcode: 320326

Tutorial Objectives 

We are witnessing the transition of robots from labs to publicly accessible spaces where they interact more with humans. This requires an increased focus on Human-Robot-Interaction, raising inherent ethical and legal issues. The tutorial will give the audience insight into regulations and initiatives, addressing the main ethical implications and legal issues currently being discussed and also how these can open up new directions in research related to robotics and AI systems (Saplacan, Khaksar, and Torresen 2021). We will present the findings in an earlier launched review (Torresen, 2018) supplemented with recent work and initiatives in this respect. 

Measures to address the implications and issues are important to make robots more relevant for human interaction and assistance and are especially important when addressing Social Assistive Robots (SAR). The tutorial will present some of these aspects through concrete examples from ongoing research projects, and other ongoing work on legal considerations, development of relevant standards, universal design principles and more. This will be from an international perspective with speakers representing three different continents (Europe, Asia and South America) and with both female and male gender.

There is no specific prerequisite knowledge required. Thus, the tutorial will be targeting all attendees of the IROS-2022 conference.

Added value for the participants and learning objectives of the tutorial: 

• Get knowledge about ethical aspects regarding inclusive robots, diversity of users, and how human autonomy is addressed in relation to the interaction with and use of robots. 
• Get an overview of and insight into relevant standards that are in progress or have already been approved.

• Learning will also be strengthened with concrete examples and cases from the current or previous research projects on how, e.g., elderly and working-age users experience interaction, privacy, and safety issues related to robots.

More info and schedule here

More details about the content of the tutorial

Robots and artificial intelligence demonstrate to effectively contribute to an increasing number of different domains, e.g., robots are being applied increasingly in close interaction with humans. In fact, as highlighted before (Khamis 2019), Robots and artificial intelligence can play a key role as an enabler to attain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations (UN) 2015).

At the same time, a growing number of people–in the general public and research–have started to consider several potential ethical challenges related to the development and use of such technology. There are also initiatives across countries like the European Commission appointed High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (AI HLEG) that have a general objective to support the implementation of the European Strategy on Artificial Intelligence (European Commission 2021a).

The risk-based approach to regulating AI and robotics seeks to legally regulate only high-risk AI (and robotics). Less risky technology development or use would thus, not be regulated by the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (Mahler 2022). Initial ideas regarding obligations for high-risk AI include requirements for training data, record-keeping, information to be provided, robustness and accuracy, as well as human oversight, meant to ensure 'trustworthy AI'. In addition, safety rules and non-discrimination will probably also play a role. For a developer of smart (AI-based) robotics, this means that new legal requirements will apply if the use of this technology is classified as risky. In that case, the technology development should already take into account these requirements.

On the other hand, there is a complex between current existing legal regulations and emerging technologies like AI and robotics. Sometimes regulators need to consider flexible and non-binding ethical principles and social norms  or so called “Soft Laws” for advanced technology governance in order to cover such legal gaps. However, it is not an easy task in AI governance at the level of human-robot interaction due to social and cultural differences from various countries. Hence, there is a demand to consider a design-centered guiding framework (Weng and Hirata 2022) for helping regulators applying soft laws into HRI governance.

Several different standards have recently been defined and approved. IEEE has in recent years had their IEEE Standards Project for Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns During System Design. One of the standards resulting from that work is the Ontological Standard for Ethically Driven Robotics and Automation Systems (IEEE P7007) that will be presented in the tutorial. IEEE 7007 contributes to the Ethics of AI domain in multiple ways. It provides a formal representation about the domain that could be used for giving support to the elaboration of regulations on the field so as governing frameworks to strengthen the collaboration across Nations. UNESCO recently published the very first normative instrument on Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (UNESCO Digital Library 2021). This instrument was approved by acclamation by the 193 UNESCO's Member States at the end of 2021. This instrument presents concrete actions to the several domains impacted by AI. It puts human rights at the forefront of these actions to unleash the benefits and opportunities that AI can bring while mitigating its risks. This instrument will also be discussed in the tutorial.

This work is partially supported by The Research Council of Norway as a part of Collaboration on Intelligent Machines (COINMAC) project, under grant agreement 261645, Vulnerability in the Robot Society (VIROS) under grant agreement 288285 and through its Centres of Excellence scheme, RITMO with project No. 262762.