On April 4-5, 2014, the University of Miami School of Law will hold its 3rd annual "We Robot" conference. As Kenneth Anderson notes in "The Volokh Conspiracy," anybody working in, or simply interested in law, policy and technology of robotics should find this conference very interesting. I would add "ethics" and "philosophy" to this list. I have been very interested in the ethical and philosophical dimensions of creating "social" robots. These are robots that can learn, react, even judge, and provide companionship to humans. They could even have the capability for independent reasoning and reproduction. Given these new dimensions, I wonder if policy makers and social science researchers must start thinking about the policies of representation, reproduction and termination of robots - much like the current discussions on granting personhood status to certain animals...?
