This poses a series of ethical questions that were not relevant for other types of machines and about which we have no previous experience, nor can we reliably predict how they will ultimately influence the evolution of humankind. This has led to the confluence of artificial intelligence (AI) with the humanities in an ethical debate that is starting to bear fruit, not only with the establishment of regulations and standards, but also with educational initiatives in university teaching, professional improvement, and the conformation of public opinion. Interestingly, science fiction (SF) often plays a prominent speculative role in highlighting the pros and cons of potential scenarios. Quoting the renowned writer Neal Stephenson [1]<\/a>1 \u2014 Stephenson, N. (2011) “Innovation starvation”. World Policy Journal, 28(3), 11-16. Disponible en l\u00ednia a: http:\/\/www.worldpolicy.org\/journal\/fall2011\/innovation-starvation\u00a0<\/a>\n<\/span><\/span>: \u00abGood SF supplies a plausible, fully thought-out picture of an alternate reality in which some sort of compelling innovation has taken place. A good SF universe has a coherence and internal logic that makes sense to scientists and engineers\u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The AI research community has felt the need of working together with social scientists, psychologists, lawyers, philosophers and anthropologists, to analyze the social and ethical implications of the technologies being developed and the way they are deployed. Multidisciplinary teams have been formed, joint research programs launched, and governments and institutions have carried out surveys and established committees to get hold of the situation and come up with guidelines and standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regarding the latter, several organizations and professional societies are developing regulations for AI programmers, robot designers, companies and users. In April 2019, the European Commission\u2019s High-Level Expert Group on AI presented Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI<\/a>, and later that year the IEEE Standards Association published Ethically Aligned Design: A Vision for Prioritizing Human Well-being with Autonomous and Intelligent Systems<\/a>, which had been open to public discussion since December 2017 and received over three hundred pages of in-depth feedback that was reviewed by one thousand experts from the realms of business, academia and policy. Previously, there had been other pioneer, more modest initiatives, such as the Barcelona Declaration for the proper development and usage of AI in Europe<\/a> and the Montr\u00e9al Declaration for a Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence<\/a>, both issued in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Legal regulation is needed for enforcing Ethical AI, but even more important is education at all levels, so as to develop critical awareness and informed public opinion. A crucial target in this regard are those designing and shaping AI tools. It is not surprising that, at the university level, renowned voices such as that of Prof. Barbara J. Grosz advocate for integrating ethics in computer science education: \u00abBy making ethical reasoning a central element in the curriculum, students can learn to think not only about what technology they could create, but also whether they should create that technology.\u00bb [2]<\/a>2 \u2014 Grosz, B.J.; Grant, D.G.; Vredenburgh, K.; Behrends, J.; Hu, L.; Simmons, A. i Waldo, J. (2019) “Embedded EthiCS: integrating ethics across CS education”. Communications of the ACM, 62(8), 54-61.\n<\/span><\/span>. Along this line, prestigious associations such as the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) include 18 knowledge areas in their Computer Science curricula, one of which is Social Issues and Professional Practice<\/em>, so that \u00abstudents develop an understanding of the relevant social, ethical, legal and professional issues\u00bb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Europe, the University of Oxford has even gone a step further in the confluence with the humanities by offering a degree in Computer Science and Philosophy<\/a>, which focuses on common interests in artificial intelligence, logic, robotics, virtual reality, and ethics. Such mixed degrees will soon proliferate all over the world and, in particular, several Catalan universities have initiatives in this direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Science Fiction (SF) has been a source of inspiration for scientists and technologists since its outbreak. Classical works by Shelley, Verne, and Huxley, among many others, envisaged research adventures, discoveries and innovations that later have become true, like space exploration, humanoid replicas, and genetic engineering. Nowadays, SF has gained increasing public attention due to the upsurge of digital technologies; most notably, AI and robotics. Many initiatives to put in contact SF writers and filmmakers with scientists and technology developers have emerged in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As an example, in 2012 the Center for Science and Imagination<\/a> was set up at Arizona State University. The idea came from a thought-provoking speech by Neal Stephenson [3]<\/a>3 \u2014 Stephenson, N. (2011) “Innovation starvation”. World Policy Journal, 28(3), 11-16. Disponible en l\u00ednia a: http:\/\/www.worldpolicy.org\/journal\/fall2011\/innovation-starvation\u00a0<\/a>\n<\/span><\/span>, given in the presence of the university president, in which the writer stated that today\u2019s scientists had lost the ability to think and do \u00abgreat things\u00bb, like those that had previously inspired the Apollo space program or the microprocessor. The president responded that perhaps it was the SF writers who were at fault because they were failing to evoke an ambitious future that would inspire scientists to make them into a reality. As a result, the Center now houses teams of researchers in science and humanities to devise and pursue ambitious goals that shape the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the projects run by the Center is the continuation of an initiative launched by the company Intel, The Tomorrow Project<\/em>, in which they asked four SF writers to create stories picturing possible future uses of its products in photonics, robotics, telematics and smart sensors. The book with the four accounts is open access [4]<\/a>4 \u2014 Rushkoff, D.; Hammond, R.; Thomas, S. i Markus, H. (2012) The Tomorrow Project. Els millors escriptors descriuen la vida quotidiana en el m\u00f3n del futur. Intel: Santa Clara.\n<\/span><\/span>, and several volumes have appeared since then in which solutions are proposed to the greatest challenges facing humanity today, through the visual arts and writing, all as a result of the work carried out at this Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Countless initiatives in this direction have emerged: joint workshops, prospective symposia, exhibitions, performances, and even top scientific journals have edited special issues devoted to SF inspiration. A pioneer was the prestigious journal Nature, which to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the hypothesis of Hugh Everett III about parallel universes, published a volume entitled Many Worlds<\/em> [5]<\/a>5 \u2014 Everett III, H. (2007) \u00abMany Worlds\u00bb Nature, 448(7149): 1-104.\n<\/span><\/span> containing articles from both researchers in quantum mechanics and SF writers. Its introduction states very clearly what role SF can play in anticipating the benefits and risks of scientific development: \u00abSerious science fiction takes science seriously. [\u2026] Science fiction does not tell us what the future will bring, but at its best it helps us to understand what the future will feel like, and how we might feel when one way of looking at the world is overtaken by another.\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teaching Ethics in AI differs considerably from teaching other subjects in Information Sciences and Engineering. It is not so much a matter of students learning some specific contents, but making them aware of the social and ethic implications of their future jobs and train them to analyze and debate about such issues. People hold multiple and often conflicting sets of values and the aim is not to unify the views of students around a set of rules, but to raise their awareness and abilities to think and discuss. Moreover, technology students are not philosophers. Although there are consolidated ethical theories that they should know about, philosophical texts are often too abstract for them, and a pragmatic option is usually taken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Sullins [6]<\/a>6 \u2014 Sullins, J.P. (2015) “Applied professional ethics for the reluctant roboticist”. Dins de The Emerging Policy and Ethics of Human-Robot Interaction, editat per L.D. Riek, W. Hartzog, D. Howard, A. Moon i R. Calo. Taller de treball dins el 10\u00e8 Congr\u00e9s Internacional de l’ACM\/IEEE sobre la Interacci\u00f3 Humans-Robots, Portland.\n<\/span><\/span>, the main ethical theories relevant to AI and human-robot interaction are: consequentialism or utilitarianism (maximizing the number of people that enjoy the highest beneficial outcomes), deontologism (acting only according to maxims that could become universal laws), virtue ethics (relying on the moral character of virtuous individuals), social justice (all human beings deserve to be treated equally and there must be a firm justification in case of mistreatment), common goods (living in a community places constraints on the individual), religious ethics (norms come from a spiritual authority), and information ethics (policies and codes for governing the creation, organization, dissemination, and use of information).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since no single theory is appropriate for addressing all ethical issues arising in the design and use of technical innovations, the pragmatic option is to adopt a hybrid approach. Such hybrid ethics is advocated by Wallach and Allen [7]<\/a>7 \u2014 Wallach W. i Allen C. (2008) Moral machines: Teaching robots right from wrong. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\n<\/span><\/span> as a combination of top-down theories (i.e., those applying rational principles to derive norms) and bottom-up ones (i.e., those inferring general guidelines from specific situations). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, where should these specific situations come from? Stephenson [8]<\/a>8 \u2014 Stephenson, N. (2011) “Innovation starvation”. World Policy Journal, 28(3), 11-16. Disponible en l\u00ednia a: http:\/\/www.worldpolicy.org\/journal\/fall2011\/innovation-starvation\u00a0<\/a>\n<\/span><\/span> claims: \u00abWhat SF stories can do better than almost anything else is to provide not just an idea for some specific technical innovation, but also to supply a coherent picture of that innovation being integrated into a society, into an economy, and into people\u2019s lives.\u00bb Thus, some Ethics in Technology courses recur to SF stories to exemplify conflictive situations. Themes addressed in the classic works by Asimov, Dick, Bradbury, Orwell, Huxley, Hoffman, Shelley, Capek, Wells, Sturgeon, Silverberg, or Keyes, such as the three laws of robotics, robot nannies, security versus freedom, lack of privacy, technological totalitarism, emotional surrogates, humanoid replicas, incidence on the job market, moral responsibility, loss of human control, high-tech biases, manipulation and automation divides, or human enhancement and posthumanism, have attained great relevance with the development of AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Given this relevance, it is natural that instructors teaching Ethics in technological degrees are recurring to such SF stories to exemplify sensitive situations the students may face in their professional practice so as to foster a fruitful reflection and debate about them. After teaching the course Science Fiction and Computer Ethics<\/em> five times at the University of Kentucky and two times at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Burton et al. [9]<\/a>9 \u2014 Burton, E.; Goldsmith, J. i Mattei, N. (2018) “How to teach computer ethics through science fiction”. Communications of the ACM, 61(8), 54-64.\n<\/span><\/span> state on their experience: \u00abUsing fiction to teach ethics allows students to safely discuss and reason about difficult and emotionally charged issues without making the discussion personal.\u00bb Besides highlighting how engaging narrative is for students, the authors report on many positive insights they got along the years that are worth reading in detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Modern science fiction touches upon many of the ethical issues depicted in classical stories, but usually focuses on the concerns raised nowadays by digital technologies, such as those derived from our intensive use of cellphones, widespread interaction in social networks, automatic decision-making based on artificial intelligence, immersive virtual reality games, and learning algorithms using big data, thus triggering interesting debates [10]<\/a>10 \u2014 \n\nTorras C. (2018) “Social networks and robot companions: Technology, ethics and science fiction”. Metode Science Studies Journal, 99: 47-53.\nTorras C. i L\u00f3pez de M\u00e1ntaras, R. (ed.) (2019) “Interlinked: machines and humans facing the 10101 century”. Metode Science Studies Journal – Annual Review, 9.\n\n \n<\/span><\/span>. Figure 1 shows some series and movies focusing on these concerns. In this respect, the series Black Mirror<\/em> is a masterpiece that, in each chapter, carries a particular technology to its most extreme consequences, and the movie Her <\/em>depicts a man falling in love with his computer\u2019s operating system, thus translating Hoffmann\u2019s The sandman<\/em> tale to a digital contemporary setting. Related to robotics, I would highlight the series Real Humans<\/em>, where almost human-like robots coexist with people and often compete with them, and the film Surrogates<\/em>, in which every citizen has an avatar controlled from home that moves around the city and interacts with people. The film Robot and Frank<\/em>, showing the relationship between the elder Frank and its robotic caregiver, deserves a special mention for its realism and educational value and was the basis for an online Robot Ethics course on the Teach with Movies website [11]<\/a>11 \u2014 Teach with Movies (2012) “Robot Ethics Using Clips from Robot and Frank”. http:\/\/teachwithmovies.org\/robot-and-frank\/<\/a>\n<\/span><\/span>, among other places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turning to books specifically designed to teach courses in technological degrees based on science fiction, I would highlight Murphy [12]<\/a>12 \u2014 Murphy, R. (ed.) (2018) Robotics Through Science Fiction: Artificial Intelligence Explained Through Six Classic Robot Short Stories. MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts.\n<\/span><\/span>, Nourbakhsh [13]<\/a>13 \u2014 Nourbakhsh, I.R. (2013) Robot Futures. MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts.\n<\/span><\/span> and Torras [14]<\/a>14 \u2014 Torras C. (2018) The Vestigial Heart. A Novel of the Robot Age. MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts (llibre del professor i presentaci\u00f3 de 100 diapositives com a material de suport per al docent (en angl\u00e8s) disponible en l\u00ednia a: http:\/\/mitpress.mit.edu\/books\/vestigial-heart<\/a>)\n<\/span><\/span>; see Figure 2. The one edited by Murphy is intended to explain key principles of AI; the enclosed stories \u2014by Asimov, Vinge, Aldiss, and Dick\u2014 cover telepresence, behavior-based robotics, deliberation, testing, human-robot interaction, the uncanny valley<\/em>, natural language understanding, machine learning, and ethics. Each story is preceded by an introductory note, \u201cAs You Read the Story,\u201d and followed by a discussion of its implications, \u201cAfter You Have Read the Story.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The other two books differ from this one in two respects: i) the authors themselves have written the science fiction stories used for illustration, and ii) the books do not explain technical principles, but are explicitly intended to foster debate on the social and ethic implications of information and communication technologies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By drawing possible future scenarios, Nourbakhsh raises some concerns about where we are heading, without neither taking an ethics regulatory viewpoint nor explicitly trying to be pedagogical. The author, a renowned roboticist, makes very lucid remarks by concentrating the following specific topics: marketing strategies in the net; the consequences of non-ephemeral design; robotic flying toys that operate by means of gaze tracking; robot-enabled multimodal, multicontinental telepresence; and even a way that nanorobots could allow us to assume different physical forms. Nourbakhsh examines the underlying technology and the social consequences of each scenario. He also offers a counter-vision: a robotics designed to create civic and community empowerment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because of my research on assistive robotics [15]<\/a>15 \u2014 \n\nTorras C. (2016) “Service robots for citizens of the future”. European Review, 24(1), 17-30.\nTorras C. (2019) “Assistive robotics: Research challenges and ethics education initiatives”. DILEMATA: International Journal of Applied Ethics, 30: 63-77.\n\n<\/span><\/span>, I became progressively concerned about the social and ethics implications of the technologies we are developing and especially interested in devising ways to teach Ethics to technologists. This led me to try my hand at fiction, and in the novel The Vestigial Heart<\/em> [16]<\/a><\/span><\/span> I imagined how being raised by artificial nannies, learning from robotic teachers and sharing work and leisure with AI programs would affect the intellectual, emotional and social habits of future generations. The novel\u2019s leit motiv <\/em>is a quotation from the philosopher Robert C. Solomon: \u00abit is the relationships that we have constructed which in turn shape us\u00bb. [17]<\/a>17 \u2014 Solomon, R.C. (1977) The Passions. Nova York: Anchor Press \/ Doubleday.\n<\/span><\/span> He meant human relations with our parents, teachers and friends, but the quotation can be applied to robotic assistants and all sorts of interactive devices, if they are to pervade our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The plot of the novel is as follows: Celia, a-thirteen-year-old girl cryogenically frozen because of her terminal illness, is cured and brought back to life in the 21st Century in order to be adopted. Aside from her memories, she brings something else from the past: feelings and emotions that are no longer in existence. These are what most attract Silvana, a middle-aged woman who works as an emotional masseuse trying to recover the sensations humans have lost. Celia\u2019s feelings are also precious research material for Leo, a bioengineer who is designing a creativity prosthesis for the mysterious Doctor Craft, owner of the leading robotics company, CraftER.<\/p>\n\n\n\nConfluence of AI with the humanities<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
The role of Science Fiction<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Teaching and fostering ethics debate using SF stories<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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