Exploring the ethical sensitivity of Ph.D. students in robotics

TL;DR

This study investigates the ethical sensitivity of Ph.D. students in robotics using case vignettes to understand their recognition of ethical issues, aiming to inform ethics training development in the field.

Contribution

It provides the first qualitative analysis of ethical sensitivity among robotics Ph.D. students, highlighting the need for targeted ethics education in robotics.

Findings

Robotics students show varied recognition of ethical issues.

Ethical sensitivity levels differ based on experience and background.

Results inform development of ethics training modules.

Abstract

Ethical sensitivity, generally defined as a person's ability to recognize ethical issues and attribute importance to them, is considered to be a crucial competency in the life of professionals and academics and an essential prerequisite to successfully meeting ethical challenges. A concept that first emerged in moral psychology almost 40 years ago, ethical sensitivity has been widely studied in healthcare, business, and other domains. Conversely, it appears to have received little to no attention within the robotics community, even though choices in the design and deployment of robots are likely to have wide-ranging, profound ethical impacts on society. Due to the negative repercussions that a lack of ethical sensitivity can have in these contexts, promoting the development of ethical sensitivity among roboticists is imperative, and endeavoring to train this competency becomes a critical undertaking. Therefore, as a first step in this direction and within the context of a broader effort aimed at developing an online interactive ethics training module for roboticists, we conducted a qualitative exploration of the ethical sensitivity of a sample of Ph.D. students in robotics using case vignettes that exemplified ethical tensions in disaster robotics.