PRINCIPLES OF ROBOTICS

The principles of robotics are a set of guidelines that govern the behavior and operation of robots, ensuring they are designed with human responsibility in mind in order to ensure the safety of robots in automation and personal use without harm.

These principles include butt not limited to; Safety and Security, Legal Responsibility, Human Responsibility, Public Engagement:

In September 2010, a group drawn from the worlds of technology, industry, the arts, law
and social sciences met at the joint EPSRC and AHRC Robotics Retreat to discuss robotics,
its applications in the real world and the huge promise robotics offers to society. Robots
have left the research lab and are now in use all over the world, in homes and in indus
try. We expect robots in the short, medium and long term to impact our lives at home, our
experience in institutions, our national and our global economy, and possibly our global
security. However, the realities of robotics are still relatively little known to the public where
science fiction and media images of robots have dominated. One of the aims of the meet
ing was to explore what steps should be taken to ensure that robotics research engages
with the public to ensure this technology is integrated into our society to the maximum
benefit of all of its citizens. As with all technological innovation, we need to try to ensure
that robots are introduced from the beginning in a way that is likely to engage public trust
and confidence; maximise the gains for the public and commerce; and proactively head off
any potential unintended consequences.
Given their prominence it is impossible to address the governance of robotics without
considering Asimov’s famous three laws of robotics (Asimov, 1950). Asimov’s laws state that

1 Law – a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being
to come to harm

2 Second – a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where
such orders would conflict with the first law,

3 Law– a robot must protect its own existence
as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second laws.

Although they provide a useful departure point for discussion Asimov’s rules are fic
tional devices. They were not written to be used in real life and it would not be practical
to do so, not least because they simply don’t work in practice. (For example, how can a
robot know all the possible ways a human might come to harm? How can a robot under
stand and obey all human orders, when even people get confused about what instructions
mean?) Asimov’s stories also showed that even in a world of intelligent robots, his laws
could always be evaded and loopholes found. But finally, and most importantly, Asimov’s
laws are inappropriate because they try to insist that robots behave in certain ways, as if
they were people, when in real life it is the humans who design and use robots who must
be the actual subjects of any law.

As we consider the ethical implications of having robots in our society, it becomes obvi
ous that robots themselves are not where responsibility lies. Robots are simply tools of
various kinds, albeit very special tools, and the responsibility of making sure they behave
well must always lie with human beings. Accordingly, rules for real robots in real life, must
be transformed into rules advising those who design, sell and use robots about how they
should act. The meeting delegates devised such a set of “rules” with the aim of provoking
a wider, more open discussion of the issues. They highlight the general principles of concern

expressed by the group with the intent that they could inform designers and users of
robots in specific situations. These new rules for robotics (not robots) are outlined below.
Thefive ethical rules for robotics are intended as a living document. They are not intended
as hard-and-fast laws, but rather to inform debate and for future reference. Obviously a
great dealofthinkinghasbeendonearoundtheseissuesandthisdocumentdoesnotseek
to undermine any of that work but to serve as a focal point for useful discussion.

Principles for designers, builders and users of robots
The five rules are presented in a semi-legal version together with a looser, but easier to
express, version that captures the sense for a non-specialist audience. Each rule is followed
by a commentary of the issues being addressed and why the rule is important.

Commentary. Tools have more than one use. We allow guns to be designed which farmers use to kill pests and vermin, but killing human beings with them (outside warfare) is
clearly wrong. Knives can be used to spread butter or to stab people. In most societies, nei
ther guns nor knives are banned but controls may be imposed if necessary (e.g. gun laws)
to secure public safety. Robots also have multiple uses. Although a creative end-user could
probably use any robot for violent ends, just as with a blunt instrument, we are saying that
robots should never be designed solely or even principally, to be used as weapons with deadly or other offensive capability. This rule, if adopted, limits the commercial capacities
of robots, but we view it as an essential principle for their acceptance as safe in civil society.

Commentary. We can make sure that robot actions are designed to obey the laws
humans have made.
There are two important points here. First, of course no one is likely to deliberately set
out to build a robot which breaks the law. But designers are not lawyers and need to be
remindedthatbuildingrobotswhichdotheirtasksaswellaspossiblewillsometimesneed
to be balanced against protective laws and accepted human rights standards. Privacy is a
particularly difficult issue, which is why it is mentioned. For example, a robot used in the
care of a vulnerable individual may well be usefully designed to collect information about
that person 24/7 and transmit it to hospitals for medical purposes. But the benefit of this
must be balanced against that person’s right to privacy and to control their own life e.g.
refusing treatment. Data collected should only be kept for a limited time; again the rule
puts certain safeguards in place. Robot designers have to think about how rules like these
can be respected during the design process (e.g. by providing off-switches).
Secondly, this rule is designed to make it clear that robots are just tools, designed to
achieve goals and desires that humans specify. Users and owners have responsibilities
as well as designers and manufacturers. Sometimes it is up to designers to think ahead
because robots may have the ability to learn and adapt their behaviour. But users may also
make robots do things their designers did not foresee. Sometimes it is the owner’s job to
supervise the user(e.g.if a parent bought a robot to play with a child). But if a robot’s actions
do turn out to break the law, it will always be the responsibility, legal and moral, of one or
more human beings, not of the robot (we consider how to find out who is responsible in
rule 5, below).

Commentary. Robots are simply not people. They are pieces of technology their owners
may certainly want to protect (just as we have alarms for our houses and cars, and security
guards for our factories), but we will always value human safety over that of machines. Our
principal aim here was to make sure that the safety and security of robots in society would
be assured so that people can trust and have confidence in them.
This is not a new problem in technology. We already have rules and processes that guarantee that, e.g. household appliances and children’s toys are safe to buy and use. There are
well worked out existing consumer safety regimes to assure this: e.g. industry kite-marks,
British and international standards, testing methodologies for software to make sure the
bugs are out, etc. We are also aware that the public knows that software and computers
can be “hacked” by outsiders, and processes also need to be developed to show that robots
are secure as far as possible from such attacks. We think that such rules, standards and tests

should be publicly adopted or developed for the robotics industry as soon as possible to
assure the public that every safeguard has been taken before a robot is ever released to
market. Such a process will also clarify for industry exactly what they have to do.
This still leaves a debate open about how far those who own or operate robots should
be allowed to protect them from e.g. theft or vandalism, say by built-in taser shocks. The
group chose to delete a phrase that had ensured the right of manufacturers or owners to
build “self-defence” capabilities into a robot. In other words we donotthinkarobotshould
ever be “armed” to protect itself. This actually goes further than existing law, where the
general question would be whether the owner of the appliance had committed a criminal
act like assault without reasonable excuse.

Commentary. One of the great promises of robotics is that robot toys may give plea
sure, comfort and even a form of companionship to people who are not able to care for
pets, whether due to restrictions in their homes, physical capacity, time or money. How
ever, once a user becomes attached to such a toy, it would be possible for manufacturers
to claim the robot has needs or desires that could unfairly cost the owners or their families
more money. The legal version of this rule was designed to say that although it is permis
sible and even sometimes desirable for a robot to sometimes give the impression of real
intelligence, anyone who owns or interacts with a robot should be able to find out what
it really is and perhaps what it was really manufactured to do. Robot intelligence is artifi
cial, and we thought that the best way to protect consumers was to remind them of that
by guaranteeing a way for them to “lift the curtain” (to use the metaphor from The Wizard
of Oz).

This was the most difficult rule to express clearly and we spent a great deal of time debating the phrasing used. Achieving it in practice will need still more thought. Should all robots
have visible bar-codes or similar? Should the user or owner (e.g. a parent who buys a robot
for a child) always be able to look up a database or register where the robot’s functionality
is specified? See also rule 5 below.

Commentary. In this rule we try to provide a practical framework for what all the rules
above already implicitly depend on: a robot is never legally responsible for anything. It is a
tool. If it malfunctions and causes damage, a human will be to blame. Finding out who the
responsible person is may not however be easy. In the UK, a register of who is responsible
for a car (the “registered keeper”) is held by DVLA; by contrast no one needs to register as
the official owner of a dog or cat. We felt the first model was more appropriate for robots, as
there will be an interest not just to stop a robot whose actions are causing harm, but people
affected may also wish to seek financial compensation from the person responsible.

Responsibility might be practically addressed in a number of ways. For example, one way
forward would be a licence and register (just as there is for cars) that records who is responsible for any robot. This might apply to all or only operate where that ownership is not
obvious (e.g. for a robot that might roam outside a house or operate in a public institution
such as a school or hospital). Alternately, every robot could be released with a searchable
online licence which records the name of the designer/manufacturer and the responsible
human who acquired it (such a licence could also specify the details we talked about in rule
4 above). There is clearly more debate and consultation required.
Importantly, it should still remain possible for legal liability to be shared or transferred
e.g. both designer and user might share fault where a robot malfunctions during use due
to a mixture of design problems and user modifications. In such circumstances, legal rules
already exist to allocate liability (although we might wish to clarify these, or require insurance). But a register would always allow an aggrieved person a place to start, by finding out who was, on first principles, responsible for the robot in question.

Seven high-level messages
In addition to the above principles, the group also developed an overarching set of messages designed to encourage responsibility within the robotics research and industrial
community, and thereby gain trust in the work it does. The spirit of responsible innova
tion is, for the most part, already out there but we felt it worthwhile to make this explicit.
The following table sets out the messages alongside explanatory commentaries.