thomblake comments on Thinking soberly about the context and consequences of Friendly AI - Less Wrong Discussion
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No, Machine Ethics is the field concerned with exactly the question of how to program ethical machines. For example, Arkin's Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots is a work in the field of Machine Ethics.
In principle, a philosopher could try to work in Machine Ethics and only do speculative work on, for example, whether it's good to have robots that like torture. But inasmuch as that's a real question, it's relevant to the practical project.
I was under the impression that Machine Ethics is mostly being researched by Computer Science experts and AI or Neuro-something specialists in particular.
My prior for someone already doing research in IT concentrating their research efforts into "How do I code something that does X" is much higher than for someone doing research in, say, propagation of memes in animal populations or intergalactic lensing distortions (Dark Matter! *shivers*).
Pretty much a mix of people who know about machines and people who know about ethics. Arkin is a roboticist. Anderson and Anderson are a philosopher/computer scientist duo. Colin Allen is a philosopher, and I believe Wendell Wallach is too.
I'd argue that the best work is done by computing/robotics folks, yes.