Roboethics principles and policies in Europe and North America

Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are revolutionizing all spheres of human life. From industrial processes to graphic design, the implementation of automated intelligent systems is changing how industries work. The spread of robots and AI systems has triggered academic institutions to closely examine how these technologies may affect the humanity—this is how the fields of roboethics and AI ethics have been born. The identification of ethical issues for robotics and AI and creation of ethical frameworks were the first steps to creating a regulatory environment for these technologies. In this paper, we focus on regulatory efforts in Europe and North America to create enforceable regulation for AI and robotics. We describe and compare ethical principles, policies, and regulations that have been proposed by government organizations for the design and use of robots and AI. We also discuss proposed international regulation for robotics and AI. This paper tries to highlight the need for a comprehensive, enforceable, and agile policy to ethically regulate technology today and in the future. Through reviewing existing policies, we conclude that the European Unition currently leads the way in defining roboethics and AI ethical principles and implementing them into policy. Our findings suggest that governments in Europe and North America are aware of the ethical risks that robotics and AI pose, and are engaged in policymaking to create regulatory policies for these new technologies.