Bridging two realms of machine ethics

In prior chapterswe have addressed issues and topics of machine ethics programming, whether from the individual or from the collective viewpoints, which we dub “the two realms.” Bridging capabilities between the two realms, towit, the individual and collective, helps understand the emergent ethical behavior of agents in groups, and implements them not just in simulations, but in the world of future robots and their swarms. With our co-authors, have staked footholds on either side of the two realms gap, and promoted their mutually beneficial bridging. In studies of human morality, these distinct interconnected realms are evinced too: one stressing above all individual cognition, deliberation, and behavior; the other stressing collective morals, and how they emerged. Of course, the two realms are necessarily intertwined, for cognizant individuals form populations, and the twain evolved jointly to cohere into collective norms, and into individual interaction. Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Anthropology and the Cognitive Sciences provide inspirational teachings to that effect. The chapter is naturally organized as follows. First, on the basis of preceding chapters, we consider the bridging of these two realms in machine ethics. Last but not least, we ponder over the teachings of human moral evolution in this regard. A final coda foretells a road to be tread, and portends about ethical machines and us.