The cover of the most recent issue of The Economist reads: “Morals and the machine: Teaching robots right from wrong.” A short piece in the magazine states: “As robots become more autonomous, the notion of computer-controlled machines facing ethical decisions is moving out of the realm of science fiction and into the real world. Society needs to find ways to ensure that they are better equipped to make moral judgments.” Moreover, as robots “become smarter and more widespread, autonomous machines are bound to end up making life-or-death decisions in unpredictable situations, thus assuming—or at least appearing to assume—moral agency.”

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