Experts recently met to discuss how robots are challenging humankind on four frontiers: war, brain augmentation, physical augmentation, and social implications. The question: what kind of ethics, if any, applies to machines? “Robot ethicists” find that a kind of moral ethics for robots needs to be considered as they become increasingly part of our daily lives.

The First International Symposium on Roboethics asked questions like “Who is to be held morally accountable for an unmanned war crime?” and “Are machines permitted to give orders?”