With the increasing robotization of cars, airplanes, and even weapons, human error can be minimized, potentially saving many lives. But what about robot error? While responses to human error can be rather straightforward (punish the fighter pilot who accidentally killed civilians), responses to robot error definitely are not. Difficulties with debugging complex robots and ethical and legal issues surrounding robot responsibility will require us to reconsider what we know about liability (does it matter if my dog bites a child or if my robot bites a child?), and robot intelligence (does it matter if my humanoid robot hurts a child or if my toaster hurts a child?).

Roy de Kleijn (Leiden University) will talk about all this and more using real-world examples. In his daily life he is an assistant professor working in the field of cognition and cognitive robotics.