Competent Ethical Reasoning in Robots

Inner Dialog as a Step Towards Artificial Phronesis

Presenter: John Sullins

Presenter Status: Faculty

Academic Year: 22-23

Semester: Spring

Faculty Mentor: John Sullins III

Department: Philosophy

Funding Source/Sponsor: Other

Other Funding Source/Program: Sabatical Research

Screenshot URL: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1roOwnXVoPfsxQ7RSSs3EeAMi6jEjjanF

Abstract:
Inner speech is a concept from psychology that suggests that the inner dialog many of us experience as we accomplish tasks helps us become conscious of our thoughts or bring to consciousness the salient aspects of the problem at hand. This inner dialog also plays a role in skilled moral and ethical reasoning. Robot inner dialog has been used to build systems that display more conscious and trustworthy actions. In this paper we explore the possibility of testing aspects of artificial phronesis, or skilled practical moral reasoning, in machines through ex-tending work done on the development of robot inner speech.