“Reben created this robot because the world is getting closer to a time when robots will make choices about when to harm a human being. Take self-driving cars. Ford Motors recently said it planned to mass produce autonomous cars within five years. This could mean that a self-driving vehicle may soon need to decide whether to crash the car into a tree and risk hurting the driver or hit a group of pedestrians.
“The answer might be that ‘Well, these machines are going to make decisions so much better than us and it’s not going to be a problem,’ ” Reben says. “They’re going to be so much more ethical than a human could ever be.” ” – Laura Sydell