MTRE 6750: Ethics in Robotics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics

3 Credit Hours
Prerequisite: Admission to the MS program in Intelligent Robotic Systems
This course offers an overview of the ethical implications of increasing automation and robotics in both everyday life and industry. Ethical theories such as virtue ethics, deontology, and utilitarianism are first studied. These are linked to various algorithmic approaches in artificial agents, e.g. rule-based, behavior-based, etc. This framework for analyzing the social implications of artificial intelligence and robot technology is applied to situations such as autonomous systems causing unintentional harm, injuries caused by autonomous vehicles, and digital surveillance from data mining online interactions. The economics of automation are also studied and linked to ethical considerations.