RoboTed: a case study in Ethical Risk Assessment
This work addresses ethical risks in robotics design, particularly for smart toys, but is incremental as it applies an existing risk assessment framework to a new domain.
The paper introduces Ethical Risk Assessment (ERA) as an extension of traditional risk assessment to include ethical risks, and demonstrates its value through a case study of a hypothetical smart robot toy, RoboTed, showing how it prompts design changes for a more ethical and sustainable robot.
Risk Assessment is a well known and powerful method for discovering and mitigating risks, and hence improving safety. Ethical Risk Assessment uses the same approach but extends the envelope of risk to cover ethical risks in addition to safety risks. In this paper we outline Ethical Risk Assessment (ERA) and set ERA within the broader framework of Responsible Robotics. We then illustrate ERA with a case study of a hypothetical smart robot toy teddy bear: RoboTed. The case study shows the value of ERA and how consideration of ethical risks can prompt design changes, resulting in a more ethical and sustainable robot.