Faculty Highlight
Ronald C. Arkin - Robots & Ethical Use
Regents' Professor and Roboticist Ron Arkin received the B.S. Degree from the University of Michigan, the M.S. Degree from Stevens Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1987. He then assumed the position of Assistant Professor in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology where he now holds the rank of Regents' Professor and is the Director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory. He also serves as the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech since October 2008. During 1997-98, Professor Arkin served as STINT visiting Professor at the Centre for Autonomous Systems at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden. From June-September 2005, Prof. Arkin held a Sabbatical Chair at the Sony Intelligence Dynamics Laboratory in Tokyo, Japan and then served as a member of the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Group at LAAS/CNRS in Toulouse, France from October 2005-August 2006.
In addition to his teaching and research, Professor Arkin has worked extensively on the military applications of robots. In his work, he asks difficult questions about how scientists can reduce human inhumanity to others. He has published several books on the subject, and has been featured as an expert by the New York Times, as well as other national media, for his knowledge on the ethical use of robotics in the modern battle-space.
- Article: A Soldier, Taking Orders From Its Ethical Judgment Center, The New York Times
- Book: Robot Colonies, Arkin, Ronald C., Bekey, George (Eds.)
- Book: Behavior-Based Robotics, Ronald C. Arkin
- Book: Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots 1st Edition, Ronald C. Arkin
- Technical Report: Governing Lethal Behavior: Embedding Ethics in a Hybrid Deliberative/Reactive Robot Architecture, Ronald C. Arkin
- Guest Lecture Video, Washington & Lee University: The Ethics of Technology
- Guest Lecture Video, U. Mass. Boston: The Ethics of Robotic Deception
- Guest Lecture Video, University of St.Gallen: Technology & War