EPSRC Principles of Robotics: defending an obsolete human(ism)?. Issue 2 (3rd April 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Szollosy, Michael
• Is Part Of: Connection science. Volume 29:Issue 2(2017)
• Page Start: 150
• Page End: 159
• Publication Date: 2017-04-03
• Subjects: Robots -- humanism -- posthumanism -- post-capitalism -- artificial intelligence; Neural computers -- Periodicals; Artificial intelligence -- Periodicals; Cognitive science -- Periodicals; Connectionism -- Periodicals; 006.3
• DOI: 10.1080/09540091.2017.1279126
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0954-0091

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The EPSRC Principles of Robotics (2010), whatever noble intentions, failed to create an enduring set of principles for research into and development of robotics and artificial intelligence because those participating in the workshop did not begin with an adequate understanding of what it means to be "human". Labouring under the false, outdated assumptions of humanism, the human beings that the Principles are meant to serve have never existed in such an overly-simplistic form, or are soon to be made extinct by the transformative power of new technologies, and new ways of imagining human social relations in response to technological innovation. At the heart of any principles for robotics must be a new, more flexible conception of what it means to be human, and a recognition that human beings are, and always will be, plural and contingent.