An ethical black box for social robots: A draft open standard

Abstract

This paper introduces a draft open standard for the robot equivalent of an aircraft flight data recorder, which we call an ethical black box.This is a device, or software module, capable of securely recording operational data (sensor, actuator and control decisions) for a social robot, in order to support the investigation of accidents or nearmiss incidents.The open standard, presented as an annex to this paper, is offered as a first draft for discussion within the robot ethics community.Our intention is to publish further drafts following feedback, in the hope that the standard will become a useful reference for social robot designers, operators and robot accident/incident investigators.