Patrick Lin

Fritz Allhoff

Nanotechnology & Society is a collection of sixteen papers focused on the most urgent issues arising from nanotechnology today and in the near future. Written by leading researchers, policy experts, and nanoethics scholars worldwide, the book is divided into five units: foundational issues; risk and regulation; industry and policy; the human condition; and selected global issues. The essays tackle such contentious issues as environmental impact, health dangers, medical benefits, intellectual property, professional code of ethics, privacy, international governance, and more.

Current and Emerging Ethical Issues

Nanotechnology & Society

Daniel Moore

Ongoing research in nanotechnology promises both innovations andrisks, potentially and profoundly changing the world. This bookhelps to promote a balanced understanding of this importantemerging technology, offering an informed and impartial look at thetechnology, its science, and its social impact and ethics. Nanotechnology is crucial for the next generation ofindustries, financial markets, research labs, and our everydaylives; this book provides an informed and balanced look atnanotechnology and its social impact Offers a comprehensive background discussion on nanotechnologyitself, including its history, its science, and its tools, creatinga clear understanding of the technology needed to evaluate ethicsand social issues Authored by a nanoscientist and philosophers, offers anaccurate and accessible look at the science while providing anideal text for ethics and philosophy courses Explores the most immediate and urgent areas of social impactof nanotechnology

From Science to Ethics

What Is Nanotechnology and Why Does It Matter?

Keith Abney

Ryan Jenkins

The robot population is rising on Earth and other planets. (Mars is inhabited entirely by robots.) As robots slip into more domains of human life--from the operating room to the bedroom--they take on our morally important tasks and decisions, as well as create new risks from psychological to physical. This makes it all the more urgent to study their ethical, legal, and policy impacts. To help the robotics industry and broader society, we need to not only press ahead on a wide range of issues, but also identify new ones emerging as quickly as the field is evolving. For instance, where military robots had received much attention in the past (and are still controversial today), this volume looks toward autonomous cars here as an important case study that cuts across diverse issues, from liability to psychology to trust and more. And because robotics feeds into and is fed by AI, the Internet of Things, and other cognate fields, robot ethics must also reach into those domains, too. Expanding these discussions also means listening to new voices; robot ethics is no longer the concern of a handful of scholars. Experts from different academic disciplines and geographical areas are now playing vital roles in shaping ethical, legal, and policy discussions worldwide. So, for a more complete study, the editors of this volume look beyond the usual suspects for the latest thinking. Many of the views as represented in this cutting-edge volume are provocative--but also what we need to push forward in unfamiliar territory.

From Autonomous Cars to Artificial Intelligence

Robot Ethics 2.0

George A. Bekey

Prominent experts from science and the humanities explore issues in robot ethics that range from sex to war. Robots today serve in many roles, from entertainer to educator to executioner. As robotics technology advances, ethical concerns become more pressing: Should robots be programmed to follow a code of ethics, if this is even possible? Are there risks in forming emotional bonds with robots? How might society--and ethics--change with robotics? This volume is the first book to bring together prominent scholars and experts from both science and the humanities to explore these and other questions in this emerging field. Starting with an overview of the issues and relevant ethical theories, the topics flow naturally from the possibility of programming robot ethics to the ethical use of military robots in war to legal and policy questions, including liability and privacy concerns. The contributors then turn to human-robot emotional relationships, examining the ethical implications of robots as sexual partners, caregivers, and servants. Finally, they explore the possibility that robots, whether biological-computational hybrids or pure machines, should be given rights or moral consideration. Ethics is often slow to catch up with technological developments. This authoritative and accessible volume fills a gap in both scholarly literature and policy discussion, offering an impressive collection of expert analyses of the most crucial topics in this increasingly important field.

Patrick Lin

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