On robots with reasoning capabilities and human-like appearance and behaviour: implications for accident investigations

Conference item

AI-enhanced reasoning enables robots to create detailed accounts of their own situated behaviour as well as the behaviour of other people. This capability is currently employed by robot designers to achieve transparency, trust, and enhance robot social and communicative capabilities. Furthermore, robots may be designed to resemble humans both in their physical appearance and their behaviour. This approach is intended to facilitate more effective interactions with people. In this article we identify and examine some of the ethical, social and legal implications of these capabilities for the investigation of robot accidents. We consider two aspects in particular. The first of these is the role of robots as subjects in a testimony regarding an incident in which they are directly or indirectly involved. This can be described as a case of robots acting as witnesses. The second aspect is the role of robots as objects in a human testimony. This can be described as a case of robots being witnessed.

Authors: Salvini, P; Pattinson, J-A; Kunze, L; Winfield, A; Jirotka, M

• Publication status: Accepted
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: IOS Press
• Acceptance date: 2024-06-11
• Event title: Robophilosophy Conference 2024
• Event location: Aarhus
• Event website: https://cas.au.dk/en/robophilosophy/conferences/rpc2024
• Event start date: 2024-08-20
• Event end date: 2024-08-23
• Language: English
• Keywords: robots as witnesses; reasoning capabilities; robots as being witnessed; human-like appearance and behaviour; robot accident investigation; explainable AI; FFR