Robotics, AI, and Humanity

Joachim von Braun is Director of the Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn University, and Professor for economic and technological change. He received his doctoral degree in agricultural economics from the University of Goettingen, Germany. His research is on economic development, science and technology policy, poverty reduction, food and nutrition security, resource economics and trade. von Braun is President of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences of the Vatican; member of German National Academy of Science - Leopoldina, Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), Academy of Arts and Science North Rhine-Westphalia, fellow of African Academy of Science and of American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. From 2002 to 2009, he was director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) based in Washington DC. He was president of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE). Margaret S. Archer has a PhD from London School of Economics, is a sociologist, who spent most of her academic career at the University of Warwick, UK, where she was Professor of Sociology. She was also a professor at l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. Professor Archer served as President of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences until 2019. She was President of the International Sociological Association 1986-90. Her research is in the area of philosophy of social science. It has fundamentally been concerned with the "problem of structure and agency", that is with justifying these as irreducible entities with their own emergent properties and powers. She is working on the manner in which human reflexivity serves to mediate between our personal concerns and our structural conditioning as the next stage in the above project. Gregory M. Reichberg is Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo. He heads the Oslo-based Research School on Peace and Conflict (a consortium that offers doctoral courses) and is an associate editor of the Journal of Military Ethics. Reichberg leads Warring with Machines: Military Applications of Artificial Intelligence and the Relevance of Virtue Ethics, a four-year project funded by the Research Council of Norway's Research Programme on the Cultural Conditions Underlying Social Change. He is author of Thomas Aquinas on War and Peace, which was named an “outstanding academic title 2017” by Choice Magazine.Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo is Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences since 1998. He is retired Professor of the History of Philosophy, Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta (1998-2015). Ordained Bishop by His Holiness John Paul II on 19 March 2001, he is member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas (1989) and was Secretary Prelate (1999-2017); Member of the Accademia dei Georgofili (2008); Member of Academy of Sciences of Cuba (2009); Member of the Accademia Italiana del Vino (2010); Member of the Académie Catholique de France (2011). His early work centred around an innovative examination of the primary function of the idea of participation in the core theological approach of St. Thomas Aquinas. Drawing upon the most recent developments in critical research into the structure of the thought of Aristotle, Sánchez Sorondo examined the different interpretations of this philosopher, especially those propounded during the medieval period by Thomas Aquinas and during the modern era by Hegel.

• 1. Introduction, overview and cross cutting conclusions.- SECTION I) FOUNDATIONAL ISSUES IN AI AND ROBOTICS.- 2. Could a robot be conscious? Lessons from philosophy.- 3. Could a robot be conscious? Lessons from the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness.- 4. Differences between Natural and Artificial Cognitive Systems.- 5. Foundations of artificial intelligence and effective universal induction.- SECTION II) AI AND ROBOTICS CHANGING THE FUTURE OF SOCIETY (WORK, FARMING, SERVICES AND POVERTY).- 6. Robotics and the global organization of production.- 7. AI/robotics implications for poverty and marginalization.- 8. Robotics for sustainable Crop Production.- 9. Robotics and AI for food security and innovation.- 10. Robotics in the classroom. Hopes or threats?.- SECTION III) ROBOTICS, AI, AND MILITARIZED CONFLICT.- 11. Designing robots for the battlefield: state of the art.- 12. Military applications of AI and the relevance of virtue ethics.- 13. The use of AI in cyber war: ethical and regulatory challenges.- 14. AI Winter or AI that Saves the World? - AI and nuclear deterrence.- SECTION IV) AI/ROBOT – HUMAN INTERACTIONS: REGULATORY AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS.- 15. Can Human Beings and AI Robots be Friends?.- 16. Robots and rights.- 17. Human-robot interactions and affecting computing: the ethical implications.- 18. Humans Judged by Machines: the Rise of big data in Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate.- 19. mpact of robotics/AI on human relations: the process of hybridization and how to deal with it.- 20. What is it to implement human-robot joint action?.- 21. Unpacking “Responsible robotics”.- 22. Regulating AI: considerations that apply across domains.