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1 Introduction

Ensuring Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is one of the greatest technological success stories of the present time. Robots are becoming more and more important in our daily lives. In fact, robots are rapidly cropping up into human beings environments, interacting with people in increasingly intrusive ways. They are appearing everywhere: in entertainment, healthcare, search and rescue, and many other venues where interaction is possible. In each of these cases, there is no question that robotic technology is making life easier, safer, or more convenient for human beings. Despite these benefits, concerns remain about what happens when robotic technology fails, resulting in economic loss, property damage, injury, or loss of life. Still, linked to the risk of errors, it may be unclear who is responsible for any harmful results. While literature sufficiently addresses the rapid and remarkable technological advances, the ethical implications of these interactions have been largely ignored. HRI is in need of practical guidance toward understanding ethical challenges. Science-Fiction movies have already predicted some applications of HRI, raising thereby questions about all the challenges they may create for ethics.

Over the past decades, numerous sci-fi movies dealt with HRI. HRI interrelations with sci-fi films have yet to be explored in details. In this paper, I survey some of the remarkable movies of film industry dealing with HRI, and comment on their ethical implications. The aim of this paper is to (1) outline the main ethical issues raised by HRI in Sci-Fi movies, (2) identify the major ethical implications for which designers, programmers, and end users must now be prepared, and (3) identify the possible precautionary ways that could be engineered to maximize robots benefits and minimize their harms. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Next section reviews some of the related work dealing with roboethics reported in the literature. Section 3 presents a formal investigation of the ethical issues reported by sci-fi movies. Section 4 describes my survey method and gives information about the obtained results. The last section summarizes the contributions, provides the conclusions, and indicates an outlook by which the research proposed in this paper can be extended.

2 Related Work and Motivation

Roboethics extends the field of computer ethics beyond concern for what people do with their computers to questions about what the robots do by themselves. In the robot ethics literature, Isaac Asimov’s [1] laws of robotics have so dominated discussion about the ethics of HRI as to eclipse the day-to-day ethical challenges facing HRI research. To these three laws initially formulated in 1942, he added the zeroth law, in 1983. And, given the speed with which robotics technology advances, ethical challenges will continue to multiply. Later on, Ingram et al. [2] proposed a general code of ethics. To date, a number of roboethics initiatives have taken place at international and national levels. While a majority of the initiatives share the common goal of promoting discussions within the field, many of the initiatives have been limited to expert groups, or by national and disciplinary boundaries. However, robotics is the study of a pervasive technology that crosses national and disciplinary boundaries, and robotic products affect not only the experts but also lay users of the technology. Hence, roboethics discussions need to cross these boundaries. We can find inklings of ethics in HRI literature [3]; yet, most of this work is focused on a single theme and does not present a holistic picture in terms of human expectations.

Thereby, I propose to focus the effort more narrowly by emphasizing the unique ethical challenges of robots drawn from sci-fi. Sci-Fi movies have always been a medium for speculation about the future of technology and presented the robot long before it was possible to build one. These movies have brought forth ethical concerns amongst the public and designers, challenging the boundaries of currently existing policies. In order to conduct a deeper analysis of the impact of sci-fi movies on how humans perceive robots, I developed a questionnaire. Figure 1 shows that portrayal of robots in sci-fi movies affects human perceptions about HRI and its ethical issues.

Fig. 1.
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Sci-Fi movies influence on humans’ attitude towards robots

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3 Roboethics in Sci-Fi Movies

Sci-Fi movies dealing with HRI raise serious ethical questions right now. Those movies also anticipate important and foresighted moral issues related to HRI. This study of sci-fi movies and their conception of ethics is valuable in the display of the ways people interact with robots in fiction. Thereby, it seems logical to be concerned about the possibility that what is now fiction from Asimov, Schreier, Spielberg, and others, will become lugubrious reality someday. Table 1 shows a list of movies which is meant to be illustrative of the distinctive ethical challenges arising in HRI research as seen in sci-fi. In terms of scope, I have taken into consideration – from the point of view of the ethical issues connected to robotics – a temporal range of more than three decades, in whose frame I could reasonably locate and infer certain foreseeable developments in the field. The selected movies emphasize the cultural differences between European, Eastern, and Western movies. This survey provides the space to discuss ethical issues related to HRI that arise from sci-fi movies in different cultures: European, Eastern, and Western. HRI researchers can learn a lot from sci-fi movies, so that they can anticipate moral and ethical issues that may take place in near future. This section explores some of the ethical concerns that emerge from examining this body of work.

Table 1. Sci-Fi Movies dealing with HRI by time period
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3.1 HRI Ethical Issues in Sci-Fi Movies

In this section, I present a detailed taxonomy of the most significant ethical issues related to HRI, which burst out from sci-fi movies. In the taxonomy herein, the specific ethical issues related solely to robotics are carefully evaluated. It is based on the application areas of robots, and on the specificity inherent to the HRI of these applications. This survey of HRI ethics in sci-fi movies is not overly biased towards Western and European movies, but also spots some of the Eastern films which are numerous. The latter reflect their unique cultural heritage, which is quite different from the well known Western and European cultures.

Movies often capture emerging scientific advances or even, to some extent, function as a source of enlightenment and inspiration to scientific discovery. Sci-Fi movies stand out in their predictive effort to grasp human interaction with future technology. They present technology as a double edged sword with both risks and benefits. Typically, the storylines in sci-fi movies reveal important ethical issues regarding:

  • Moral agency: robots are either used in a good way or misused. Sci-Fi movies also depict robots’ ability to make moral decisions, act with reference to right and wrong, and be held responsible for their actions;

  • Consciousness: robots are having a human-like consciousness. Sci-Fi movies present robots as sentient machines, self-aware, having feelings and emotions;

  • Identity: sci-fi movies offer a unique insight into humans and robots identities. They generally present people as robots addicted, aiming to find parts of their identities, recall aspects of their past, and get sense of who they really are;

  • Relations: humans develop cognitive and affective bonds toward robots; resulting in the humanization of the human–robot relationship. In sci-fi movies, people tend to attribute personalities, emotions, goals, and intentions to robots;

  • Privacy and surveillance: sci-fi movies tackle the effects of robots on privacy invasion, and direct surveillance. They usually present robots as invaders, having no decency, or courtesy norms.

Sci-Fi movies and the depiction of ethical issues in HRI have, of necessity, been closely intertwined. Cross-cultural sci-fi movies and HRI ethics remain largely unexplored. Yet, Table 1 European movies emphasize deontological ideas with regard to robots (judging a robot based on its actions’ adherence to a set of rules), whereas Western movies discuss utilitarian ethics (judging a robot based on the maximization of its utility such as giving pleasure, or ensuring economic well-being), and finally Eastern movies represent robots as an additional partner in the global interaction of things. In the latter, robots are always seen as beneficial and friendly to humanity.

3.2 HRI Ethical Implications in Sci-Fi Movies

As already discussed, the aforementioned movies tackle ethical concerns. Thus, they generate ethical implications in HRI, emerging some fascinating moral questions: At what point should we consider a robot to be a full collaborator, thus affording it some rights and responsibilities, and if that point is reached, will we need to emancipate others? Can and should robots be punished for misbehavior, and, if so, how? Is it ethical for one robot to damage or destroy another member of its group? If not, how can we ensure that such behaviors do not occur? Under what circumstances can robots be put in positions of authority, with human beings required to obey them? If a robot malfunctions and harms someone, who is responsible: the robot’s owner, its manufacturer, or the robot itself? Is it ethically wrong for robots to prey upon our emotional sensitivities - should they be required to remind us, explicitly or implicitly, that they are only machines? How safe do robots need to be before they’re deployed in society at large? What does it mean to behave ethically? Should robots be able to refuse an order from a human, and what ethical standards should they be held to? Would an emotional component be beneficial to a robot? [3–5].

To give an answer to those questions, it is important to know how people perceive robots and what ethical standards they expect from them. Indeed, according to sci-fi movies, there is a variety of settings in which ethical questions about the selection of robot morphology and behaviors arise; particularly regarding manifestations of gender, race, and ethnicity. Another issue tackled in those movies - concerning diversity of platforms - is that many mechanistic robots conform to grey, boxy, masculine prototype. They also present robots as machines with a low amount of ethical concerns. However, survey participants do not share the same vision. As seen in Fig. 2, more than half of the participants (54 %) perceive robots as human-like machines. Moreover, 74 % of the participants consider robots as fully-autonomous rather than remote-controlled machines. This surely implies that humans discern robots as self ethical decision makers, and peers endowed with higher ethical standards as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 2.
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Survey results related to participants perception of robots

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Fig. 3.
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Ethical standards wanted to be present during HRI

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4 Ethical Issues: Who Is Responsible?

There are currently no international treaties, agreements or conventions governing the use of robots; which raises serious ethical questions. This survey provides a place to start looking for ethical similarities and differences between Western, Eastern, and European views of HRI. It is by no means exhaustive. Note, in particular, that I deliberately debate, for the purpose of this discussion, scenarios popular in science fiction. Looking at sci-fi movies provides a unique perspective on future interactions between human beings and robots.

4.1 The Survey

As part of this work, I conducted a survey to gauge the views of people on ethics in HRI. The survey instrument was prototyped and refined prior to release on the Internet to ensure that it was unambiguous, understandable, and easy to use. The first section of the survey gathered demographic information such as age, gender, occupation, education, geographic information, level of spirituality, attitudes toward technology, robots, and so on. The main section of the survey then probed a number of ethical issues traced by sci-fi movies. The last section assessed some of the background knowledge of the respondents. 55 candidates from different fields answered the survey, expressing their acceptance or rejection of robots seen in Table 1 movies. Specifically, the goal was to establish opinion on the use of robots and their ethical implications spanning the general public, robotics researchers, and policymakers to ascertain the current point of view maintained by these various groups on this subject. The survey serves as a benchmark for future opinion and also provides insights into what people are concerned about now.

In order to get an idea about who will be held responsible if an ethical issue appears during HRI, I defined the four following categories, based on the main actors taking part in the HRI research field.

  • The ethics of how robots treat humans: in this case, it is robots who are the ethical subjects. Then, the question to ask is: what are the several ways to construe the ethical relationships between robots and humans?

  • The ethics of people who design robots: in this case, it is robots designers and/or manufacturers who are the ethical subjects. Then, the question to ask is: how to design robots that could be truly ethical agents?

  • The ethics of systems built into robots: in this case, it is robots programmers who are the ethical subjects. Then, the question to ask is: how to program robots to act ethically?

  • The ethics of people who interact with robots: in this case, it is robots users who are the ethical subjects. Then, the question to ask is: how humans might act ethically through, or with, robots regardless of their communities (e.g., doctors, police professionals, and ordinary citizens)?

Figure 4 shows indeed participants’ perception of who is to blame and take for responsible when any ethics related problem occurs during a HRI. Among the 55 participants to the survey, 26 (47 %) think that robots are not responsible for their misbehaviors and 6 of them (nearly 11 %) believe that robots have a little amount of responsibilities in regards to ethical issues raised by HRI. Whereas, almost all participants agreed that the first person to blame is the programmer, then the designer and/or the manufacturer, and finally the user. In fact, 27 (49 %) and 14 (25 %) participants sustain that it is respectively very significant/significant to hold programmers responsible for ethical issues. Afterwards, according to participants, designers and/or manufacturers are those to be hold accountable for ethical problems during HRI. More than half of them support this idea, with 22 (40 %) finding it significant and 15 (27 %) perceiving it as very significant. Finally, participants think that users should also be reprimanded if there is a lack of ethics during a HRI; with 21 (38 %) of them seeing it as very significant and 13 (24 %) finding it significant.

Fig. 4.
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Survey participants’ perception of who is in charge of ethical issues during HRI

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4.2 Recommendations and Precautionary Measures

Based on the aforementioned ethical problems tackled by sci-fi movies, the perception of robots by humans, and their perception of the people to be held responsible; it is necessary to guarantee some conditions and establish some precautions in HRI. From the individual researcher’s point of view, she/he has to make it possible to adhere and implement the ethical code. Thus, some important steps must be taken such as:

  • Decision-making capacity: empowering robots by a certain amount of freedom to identify situations and choose alternatives based on the values and preferences defined and accepted;

  • Individual scientists’ honesty and integrity: integrating ethical values into programming, software engineering, and design;

  • Transparency of processes: making information available for public consumption;

  • Continuous re-evaluation: improving educational system at all levels to prepare future generations ahead of time, and pursuing the state of development in robotics research field and its implications;

  • Religious involvement: establishing adequate pro-active answers to the aforementioned ethical issues, by the religious scholars;

  • Ethics assessment: expanding the ethics field of study to cater fully HRI and roboethics.

To sum up, I think that in order to fully understand the consequences of the deployment of robots in humans’ life, a systematic ethical evaluation needs to be conducted to guide users, robots developers, and robots manufacturers and/or designers regarding the intended future use of robots. For sure, this study needs to be conducted prior to their deployment, not as an afterthought.

5 Conclusion and Future Work

This paper identified the most evident, urgent, and sensitive ethical issues discussed by sci-fi movies, leaving a place for a deeper analysis and further studies. These issues are but the tip of the iceberg regarding the ethical quandaries surrounding the use of robots in everyday life. It is my contention, nonetheless, that if robots will take a place in our daily life, it is people’s duty to ensure they are as safe as possible. Robots are and will remain in the foreseeable future dependent on human ethical scrutiny as well as on the moral and legal responsibility of humans. As in every field of science and technology, sensitive areas open up, and it is the specific responsibility of the scientists who work in this field to face these new ethical issues.

I truly believe that ethical and moral decisions should be made by humans, not their creations. In fact, ethics should be understood as making a constructive contribution to work in HRI field of research. It is HRI researchers’ duty to avoid as much as possible situations in which ethical problems are noticed or may occur. Thereby, since one of the crucial goals in HRI is to aim for broad user acceptance of robots, it is in the interest of HRI researchers to take ownership of HRI ethics issues, and to make attention to those issues a routine aspect of their everyday work. A culture of ethical awareness and refinement within the HRI community, taking into account the difference in genders, races, and cultures, will surely advantage the cause of HRI research. Actually, roboethics is not the ethics of robots, nor any artificial ethics, as shown in sci-fi movies. Ethics are not ‘there’, we are the ethics!