While scientific and technological advancements in artificial intelligence and robotics are making autonomous vehicles feasible, social and ethical questions are also being raised to ensure a responsible deployment. Much discussion has especially revolved around potential situations of life-threatening accidents related to the use of autonomous vehicles in unpredictable traffic environments. In response to whether the infamous trolley problem can be used to guide ethical decision-making for autonomous vehicles, we will in this paper provide a metaphilosophical analysis of the methodological difference between thought experiments in philosophy and problem-solving in science and engineering. We argue that such analysis can further understanding and collaboration between philosophers and computer scientists working on artificial intelligence and robotics. 

Care robots are now seen as part of the solution to global aging. This paper asks: how has responsible robotics been perceived? What are the missing elements that would enable responsible robotics (in research, development, and wider use) in different jurisdictions? In order to answer these questions, the article explores the views of welfare technology (WT) developers concerning the current state of robotics development and use in care settings in Ireland and Japan. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 technology developers in total. The findings indicate that technology developers strongly believe that the use of care robots and WTs would strengthen the long-term care systems in both countries, if ethical and other aspects are taken into consideration. The uniform long-term care system can facilitate the top-down introduction of care robots, but a mismatch can be widened between users’ needs and the solutions that WTs can provide. The inclusion of WTs in professional curricula and training programs and changing the often-skewed media representation of AI and robotics were presented as a possible way forward. 

Robotics and AI technologies often have been perceived as radically innovative technologies that likely will cause problematic disruptions of society. In particular, ethical concerns about the simulation of high-level human capacities in social robots have engendered calls for various forms of ‘top-down’ regulation, guided by pre-set values and standards.  Working from insights of a case study with mobile robots, we suggest in this discussion paper that we might do better in pursuing responsible innovation bottom up: Moving among robots with minimal social interaction skills, citizens may practically acquire the technological knowledge that can protect them against anthropomorphizing overinterpretations and inappropriate attachments. We unfold this suggestion in three steps: First, reporting on our case study, we describe the limited role of value considerations among the design goals that currently guide developers and early adopters of mobile robots in the retail industry.  Second, based on an observation from a small ethnographic study and related HRI research on mobile robots,  we derive a proposal for responsible innovation bottom up, as supervised social experiment.  Third, we discuss the proposal, pro and contra, in the different voices of our project group.