CS 4002
Robots and Society
Extra Credit
Due 9:35 AM April 8.

Completion of this extra credit assignment will result in 0-3 points being added to your cumulative point total for the course.

Imagine that you are the ethics policy maker for the department of consumer affairs in the United States at a future time when completely autonomous, robots have become a reality. Heretofore the use of such robots has been unregulated, but now individuals are increasingly building robots to carry out vigilantism (another link is here) or even suicide. Robots have escaped manufacturing facilities and even companies, and tinkerers all over the country are creating (and distributing) such robots. As the chief ethics policy maker for your society, your goal is to develop initiatives (policies) that ensure that such robots are used ethically.

1.  Briefly articulate what it means to deploy these types of robots ethically and argue for your position, i.e., develop a suitable policy regarding their potential uses. There are four cases: one can use the robots in some situations and be considered ethical or unethical, and one could choose not to use them and be considered ethical or unethical. You don't have to treat each case separately; however, your policy argument should manage to address them. For example, one could say (but don’t): "We should only use vigilante/suicide robots in Amsterdam". That actually covers all four cases in one statement, but you’ll need to explain why for each case.

  2. After completing your argument, use the Toulmin system to do each of the following steps (include each step’s number for clarity) to show why it is valid:

1. State your claim (debatable or controversial position) clearly and succinctly regarding the question

2. Qualify your claim if necessary (bound, more precise, etc.)

3. Present and discuss the series of reasons to support your claim

4. Explain the warrant (underlying assumptions that connect the reasons to the claim). If the warrant is controversial provide suitable backing for it (explanations).

5. Provide grounds to support your claim (facts, testimony, statistics, logos, pathos, ethos, etc.)

6. Acknowledge and respond to counterarguments

7. Draw your concluding statement of your claim (or thesis).