AI ethics in August 2015

The advent of fully automated road vehicles is a topic currently getting attention in the field of transport as well as futures research: the technology is assumed to radically change the way we move in the future as well as to expand and differentiate existing mobility concepts. Still, the implications of automated driving are first and foremost discussed from a technological point of view and uncertainty about how this transition might take place remains. The embedding in the system of automob

The success of live comedy depends on a performer's ability to "work" an audience. Ethnographic studies suggest that this involves the co-ordinated use of subtle social signals such as body orientation, gesture, gaze by both performers and audience members. Robots provide a unique opportunity to test the effects of these signals experimentally. Using a life-size humanoid robot, programmed to perform a stand-up comedy routine, we manipulated the robot's patterns of gesture and gaze and examined t

INTRODUCTION: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common and chronic condition that can have disabling effects throughout the patient's lifespan. Frequent symptoms among OCD patients include fear of contamination and washing compulsions. Several studies have shown a link between contamination fears, disgust over-reactivity, and insula activation in OCD. In concordance with the role of insula in disgust processing, new neural models based on neuroimaging studies suggest that abnormally high

This study investigated peoples' opinion on auditory interfaces in contemporary cars and their willingness to be exposed to auditory feedback in automated driving. We used an Internet-based survey to collect 1,205 responses from 91 countries. The respondents stated their attitudes towards two existing auditory driver assistance systems, a parking assistant (PA) and a forward collision warning system (FCWS), as well as towards a futuristic augmented sound system (FS) proposed for fully automated

There has been much excitement among quantitative geographers about newly available data sets, characterized by high volume, velocity, and variety. This phenomenon is often labeled as “Big Data” and has contributed to methodological and empirical advances, particularly in the areas of visualization and analysis of social networks. However, a fourth v—veracity (or lack thereof)—has been conspicuously lacking from the literature. This article sets out to test the potential for verifying large data

Tourism is perceived as an appropriate solution for pursuing sustainable economic growth due to its main characteristics. In the context of sustainable tourism, gamification can act as an interface between tourists (clients), organisations (companies, NGOs, public institutions) and community, an interface built in a responsible and ethical way. The main objective of this study is to identify gamification techniques and applications used by organisations in the hospitality and tourism industry to

BACKGROUND: The Internet is becoming an important source of health information; however, unverified health rumours may be included in health-related search results. There is a critical need to provide health information seekers with methods that are specifically geared towards the identification of the authenticity of health rumours. METHODS: Using 453 health rumours collected from a definitive online reference of rumours in China, this study investigates which features contribute to distinguish

While collective intelligence (CI) is a powerful approach to increase decision accuracy, few attempts have been made to unlock its potential in medical decision-making. Here we investigated the performance of three well-known collective intelligence rules ("majority", "quorum", and "weighted quorum") when applied to mammography screening. For any particular mammogram, these rules aggregate the independent assessments of multiple radiologists into a single decision (recall the patient for additio

Abstract Affect can significantly influence education/learning. Thus, understanding a learner's affect throughout the learning process is crucial for understanding motivation. In conventional education/learning research, learner motivation can be known through postevent self‐reported questionnaires. With the advance of affective computing technology, researchers are able to objectively identify and measure a learner's affective status during the entire learning process in a real‐time manner, and

Literature and Disability introduces readers to the field of disability studies and the ways in which a focus on issues of impairment and the representation of disability can provide new approaches to reading and writing about literary texts. Disability plays a central role in much of the most celebrated literature, yet it is only in recent years that literary criticism has begun to consider the aesthetic, ethical and literary challenges that this poses. The author explores: key debates and issu

May lethal autonomous weapons systems-'killer robots'-be used in war? The majority of writers argue against their use, and those who have argued in favour have done so on a consequentialist basis. We defend the moral permissibility of killer robots, but on the basis of the non-aggregative structure of right assumed by Just War theory. This is necessary because the most important argument against killer robots, the responsibility trilemma proposed by Rob Sparrow, makes the same assumptions. We sh

Group living animals may eavesdrop on signalling interactions between conspecifics in order to collect adaptively relevant information obtained from others, without incurring in the costs of first-hand information acquisition. This ability (aka social eavesdropping) is expected to impact Darwinian fitness, and hence predicts the evolution of cognitive processes that enable social animals to use public information available in the environment. These adaptive specializations in cognition may have

INTRODUCTION: Apathy, agitated behaviours, loneliness and depression are common consequences of dementia. This trial aims to evaluate the effect of a robotic animal on behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia in people with dementia living in long-term aged care. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A cluster-randomised controlled trial with three treatment groups: PARO (robotic animal), Plush-Toy (non-robotic PARO) or Usual Care (Control). The nursing home sites are Australian Government approved an