Over the course of the previous yr Open Robotics has taken time from our day-to-day efforts to work with our colleagues within the subject to contemplate how the know-how we develop might negatively influence society as a complete. In explicit we had been involved with the weaponization of cellular robots. After numerous considerate dialogue, deliberation, and debate with our colleagues at organizations like Boston Dynamics, Clearpath Robotics, Agility Robotics, AnyBotics, and Unitree, we’ve co-authored and signed an open letter to the robotics neighborhood entitled, “General Purpose Robots Should Not Be Weaponized.” You can learn the letter, in its entirety, right here. Additional media protection of the letter will be present in Axios, and The Robot Report.
The letter codifies inside insurance policies we’ve had at Open Robotics since our inception and we predict it captures the feelings of a lot of the ROS neighborhood. For our half, we’ve pledged that we are going to not weaponize cellular robots, and we don’t assist others doing so both. We imagine that the weaponization of robots raises critical moral points and harms public belief in applied sciences that may have large advantages to society. This is however a primary step, and we sit up for working with coverage makers, the robotics neighborhood, and most of the people, to proceed to advertise the moral use of robots and prohibit their misuse. This is however certainly one of many discussions that should occur between robotics professionals, most of the people, and lawmakers about superior applied sciences, and fairly frankly, we predict it’s lengthy overdue.
Due to the permissive nature of the licenses we use for ROS, Gazebo, and our different initiatives, it’s troublesome, if not unattainable, for us to restrict the usage of the know-how we develop to construct weaponized programs. However, we don’t condone such efforts, and we could have no half in instantly helping those that do with our technical experience or labor. This has been our coverage from the beginning, and can proceed to be our coverage. We encourage the ROS neighborhood to take the same stand and to work with their native lawmakers to forestall the weaponization of robotic programs. Moreover, we hope all the ROS neighborhood will take time to mirror deeply on the moral implications of their work, and assist others higher perceive each the optimistic and damaging outcomes which can be attainable in robotics.
tags: c-Military-Defense
Open Robotics
create open software program and {hardware} platforms for robotics. They use these platforms to unravel necessary issues and assist others to do the identical.
Open Robotics
create open software program and {hardware} platforms for robotics. They use these platforms to unravel necessary issues and assist others to do the identical.