AUTHOR
Mark Ramrattan, Jai Ramrattan, Nandish V Patel and Nabila Hussain

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Web Information System Development Methodologies for today’s critical factors; Internet Speed and Web-based Aesthetics are in need of emergent analytical development tools. This paper proposes insights from an action research investigation into how the adaptation of methodologies from the Information Systems domain is insufficient in terms of meeting today’s Web Information System demands of continuously changing structures, processes and resources.

Information Systems Development Methodologies

The focus of this research paper uses the notion of an Information Systems Development Methodology or ISDM as a tool-kit of ideas, approaches, techniques and tools which web developers use to help them to translate actual organisational needs into appropriate Information Systems.

An ISDM is a: “recommended collection of philosophies, phases, procedures, rules, techniques, tools, documentation, management and training for developers of Information Systems”. (Avison and Fitzgerald, 2003a)

Revolution of Web

When the revolution of Web technology started, small businesses and individuals could also afford to create their own computer applications, including a Website. Google.com, Yahoo.com, Amazon.com are very good examples. They started as unknown companies to become some of the most renowned companies in the world. In fact, they had taken advantage of the Internet and Web technology to drive their business so that the Web now has become a strategic part of the business.

Therefore, Website and Web-based Information Systems development are placed at the forefront of new business systems development. Many companies have tried to have at least a Website and need it within a small number of weeks (time constrained environment). Although there are many Web development methodologies available to practitioners, they are not well-known, or are known but many avoid using them.

Undeniably, there are contrary and supporting statements on both sides of the argument on the benefits of adopting a methodology for web-based development. While it is beyond the scope of this research to study every available methodology, this research paper will focus on Web-based Information Systems Development Methodologies to establish greater understanding which are relevant to the problem.

Web-based Development Specifically Different

Firstly, the original purpose of Web-based development is to build an alternative type of medium that extends a channel of communication to online publishing purpose for internal and external stakeholders. In addition, the purpose of the Information Systems development is to facilitate business transactions and operation of an organisation.

Secondly, the development life cycle of a general Information System is a long term cycle, while a short term life-cycle of web-based development is quite common for many web-based projects.

Thirdly, the web is content intensive, and composed of unstructured information use; while structured information and its flow are the major focus of traditional Information Systems.

Finally, web-based development is a rich graphical approach, although it may be optional to most Information Systems development projects. Consequently, the methodology to development, needs to be discussed separately from the traditional Information System development.

In most cases, Web developers start to create a document on the ‘editor software’ without hesitation in order to make a design and analysis; this ‘ad-hoc’ approach can be problematic (Linden and Cybulski 2004). Similar to word processing applications, modern HTML editors allow Web developers to easily create, edit, update and publish the documents directly to their online sites. As a result, Web developers, who may have little or none technical background in system development, will nevertheless, be able to have an advantage and seamlessly create their own sites without hiring programmers.

Although some contents may appear functional, they may display the contents inefficiently within acceptable response timing. Misunderstanding of the method of usage may lead to suffering as this technique may not always be appropriate. Since the increased demand for Web-based content, there have been some very important issues that have arisen regarding Web-based development. Additionally, increasing volume of image usage and the demand for large scale documents are today’s primary concerns for most Web developers. Adoption of some kind of techniques (i.e. analytical tool) may help Web developers reduce these kinds of problems.

Although Powell (2000) mentions the needs for Web development methodology and also the adoption of Information System development methodology such as the Waterfall Model, Modified Waterfall and Joint Application Development (JAD) to Web-based Information System Development. There is no clear explanation of a procedure and method for doing so. However, there is recommendation of the site-building methodology for Web design and development guidelines for web developers.

Web-based Information Systems Development methodology has derived a concept from hypermedia development methodology. Usually, hypermedia is a combination of rich texts, graphics, audio, video, and so forth by using the concept of a hyperlink in order to provide a cross reference and navigation to other pages or sections of the application. Any hypermedia design and development methodology should be able to adopt the development of a Web-based Information Systems (Coda et al 1998).

Summary

Many methodologies exist for ISD since the 1970s and new ones are being produced. Both practitioners and researchers continue to create and recommend new methodologies to facilitate the development of the Information Systems application using new technology with a current shift to support the emerging areas of Web technologies and applications.

Prior to the revolution of Web technology, there were already existing Information Systems development methodologies available to practioners for web-based development projects. The major players during that period were often large enterprises, which were willing to pay huge sums of money for Information Systems development. The reason is quite simple, this was in order for them to gain a competitive advantage. To achieve this goal, methodologies had been adopted for the efficient development of Information Systems. The competitive advantage has changed with the introduction of the web-based platform, though today’s problem of Internet Speed and Web based aesthetics makes it more problematic.

AUTHOR
Adam Pietrzykowski

ABSTRACT

From its beginning information and communication technologies (ICT) are successively changing the way we are living. The reality of a modern world is filled with technological solutions that shape economic, social, cultural and any other dimension of life. This changes are also present in education. Defined as a process of learning and teaching education obtained new possibilities both in the area of learning environment and creation of learning content.

The role of education in modern societies is indisputably invaluable. From its quality depends the social capital that will constitute economic and cultural living space. Building modern societies where knowledge is a primary production resource require customized education that can follow rapidly changing hi-tech reality. From the perspective of an individual education gives greater chance to realize human potential, which brings more conscious life and an better opportunities in creating one’s own Lebenswelt.

Thanks to possibilities brought by ICT education gain a new perspectives especially in dimensions of knowledge creation and representation. The multimedia effect construct an immerse habitat that gives more complex and rich educational experience than the traditional forms.

But the most important of computer technology is the context of education is the status of information and thus education materials. The digitalization of information enabled creation of infinite amount of lossless and free “copies of knowledge”. Together with communication wonder – Internet – there can be achieved a groundbreaking chance: effective and cheap way of exchanging educational resources and an international community that creates it.

Noticing that chance caused in arising of a world wide Open Education community promoting the idea of sharing and cooperating. Knowledge, ideas, teaching methodology and technological solutions related to eduction are conceived to be open in the sense of availability, changeability and free distribution. Reports made by major organizations, foundations and educational institutions on Open Eduction like OECD’s “Giving knowledge for free”, UNESCO’s “OER: The Way Forward” or MIT’s “Opening Up Education” finds this sort of gift economy crucial for development of Informal Society. In 2007 Cape Town Open Education Declaration came into existence. It points the strategy and the field of activity in scope of promoting and later progress of Open Education idea. Apart from bottom-up initiatives it indicates top-down activities of government institutions whose role is to support Open Education by creating friendly law regulations. Financial models, network infrastructure, software technologies and especially copyright law are the key problems that have to be solved.

The clash of digital era reality with copyright regulations from the industrial, analog era leads to a dissonance between the technological possibility of sharing and present restriction of the law. Open licenses like Creative Commons are fixing this gap by laying the foundations for intellectual property sharing. The license give full control of regulating the proportion between own interest and public domain interest to the author. Although open licenses are well known in Internet gift communities there still remain unknown or questionable for lawmakers. Also the lack of suitable software that constitute a technological base for cooperation can cause a problem. However fast growing open source solutions give hope for overcoming this obstacle. Together with open licenses, open source leads to an open ecosystem that is complementary with the idea of Open Education.

Open Education is nowadays something more then a “honorable idea”. Stying at the institutional model of sharing resources (OER, OpenCourseWare) there appears an issue about the characteristic of the exchange. The standard assume is that there is some kind of unwritten reverse principle. An idealistic assumption that knowledge sharing institution will derive advantages from knowledge shared by another institution. In fact, the decision of sharing can be rather dictated by economical calculation. Sharing is automatically a good advertisement for the institution (MIT case) therefore there is always some kind of surplus at the end. A different characteristic is when the institution is funded from public money. In such case, there is a strong ethical (not economical) imperative that every digitalized work of the educators should be shared freely.

For the drawn above global cooperation of teachers, lecturers and students the possible changes it brings can be located in two spheres. The first focus on quantitative and qualitative perspective that can be related to “knowledge production”, “knowledge up-to-date” and “knowledge fixing”. The second is the impact of global oriented community on the shape of locally education structures and teaching traditions. By observing initiatives that already exist (e.g. Connexions) there can be given an answer on possible range and depth of this potential changes.

Open education is not only about people connected with educational institutions. The Internet itself is a cornucopia of knowledge brought in by creative amateurs. In view of social architecture of present-day Internet (Web 2.0) a question arises whether is there’s a place in education for non-authorized knowledge that is an effect of collective collaboration (wisdom of a crowd) and what should be it’s role in our societies?

The paper main aim is to present the Open Education idea; the changes it can cause on global and local scale and the benefits from its realization. Analyzing technological, social, economical and law situation that determine its success would be the second important issue to be presented.

AUTHOR
MJ Phythian, NB Fairweather and RG Howley

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with how a phenomenon that is frequently called social media can be employed in information systems research. The aim of the paper is to describe the decision to use social media, and to describe the development and employment of a number of social media tools to assist in a research project investigating the use of electronic media in government. The aim of the use of the tools was to gain contact with, and feedback from, the researchers’ practitioner audience.

Social media, also known as Web 2.0 services and tools, can perhaps be best defined by comparing them to their opposites, industrial media such newspapers, radio and television. ‘Social media’ is small-scale self-publishing employing tools such as Internet forums, weblogs, social weblogs, wikis, podcasts, and video.

The researchers developed a model, following a large-scale literature review, to consider the employment of feedback across multiple channels for all services, as a mechanism for local government service improvement. In order to test ongoing developments and any additional reading or events that might ratify or affect the model, it was decided to develop and use a weblog to facilitate discussion of these ideas.

The weblog became a ‘golden thread’ of continuity throughout all phases from when the writing of it was first started, towards the end of the initial literature review; to being a promotional tool for the research, best practice from the academic and practitioner literature; to assisting in the promotion of the surveys; and to the collection of feedback across a range of related topics. Importantly, a hardcopy research diary was also maintained in the background, although the weblog itself became a diary of events and thoughts upon the literature.

Establishing the weblog using standard tools available from WordPress was relatively easy. As with any tool, practice made use easier and the main thing was then to provide interesting content. Sources of material came from reading a range of publications but, in addition, setting up an automated daily Google newsfeed to search for anything e-government-related brought up content both for the weblog and the research. The newsfeed provided a daily email of any additional mentions of ‘e-government’ discovered by the Google search robots as they crawled the Internet, allowing the very latest news across the world to be researched and reported upon, if felt worthy. It also became necessary to subscribe to electronic media sources, such as newsletters from the major consultancy companies with an interest in e-government.

Although with practice, posting and managing the weblog, along with occasional changes to layout became easier, there was still a certain amount of time required for extracting, writing and establishing well-linked posts. After a while it became apparent that averaging ten posts per month maintained an active number of visitors, it also became clear that around two hours were employed drafting, finalising and laying out each weblog entry. In some cases it was possible to extract information from the draft dissertation to be employed as the weblog post, whilst other entries became content in the draft dissertation following posting on the weblog, when their value was realised.

The weblog was also a launch pad for the surveys, enabling supporting materials to be read, and then the survey be reached by those wanting to complete it. This was also convenient when encouraging responses, since each posting was used to promote the survey, in the case of the second survey, along with later posts reporting initial feedback and thus prompting additional responses. Having the weblog as a base for the survey, there was also an opportunity to have the ethical prologue displayed, along with background to the research, and interim feedback.

As the weblog developed additional tools were discovered and introduced including an Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, a subscription tool and a tag cloud. The RSS feed was employed by another major public web site to deliver the weblog to a potentially different readership.

This paper describes this in more detail, and includes discussion around:

• the statistics from various sources and how they were employed for monitoring purposes. The researchers maintained spreadsheets of a range of figures from the number of visitors, the number of words written on the weblog, to the numbers subscribing to the weblog and its feeds which were used to try and understand activity with the media
• the benefits of using social media in comparison with traditional tools along with the limitations found. Since it is obviously difficult to get research reported quickly across the conventional mass media, what outcomes were demonstrated by it? The potential societal divisions were not seen as an issue in this particular context of academic research project, particularly when the researchers intended to continue to employ face-to-face communications in the promotion of any outcomes, along with interviewing others who may not have been aware of the other research mechanisms used.
• some of the tools employed, such as the Google newsfeed, the Google Feedburner and employing other social media themselves to promote particular topics on the weblog as they arose
• additional tools that might be used, including a brief exploration of wikis, video sharing and podcasting and if not used in this instance, why that was

The paper presents a summary of the findings around the use of social media as a research tool, and also examines the reasons behind one particular finding, that some government IT managers are guarded about the use of social media.

A primary conclusion to the employment of social media was that it facilitated the delivery of academic research to a wider audience, enabling a much quicker and more responsive feedback loop than purely relying on academic journal publishing, which may be little read outside of academia and takes a substantial time from research to publication.

AUTHOR
Piotr Pawlak

ABSTRACT

Politics marks its presence in the cyberspace very distinctively. A frenzy of blogging has recently set in the political arena. To my mind, it is a relatively new, yet still underestimated, but very promising element of the political show. A blog is an Internet diary, which is based on the World Wide Web, that is one of the most popular web services. In other words, it is a website, the content of which is created by both its author and the Internet users, who enter it. It is the author, who decides (to a smaller or larger extent), what a blog looks like and submits new content with new diary entries (so called posts). The website visitors can also add posts and comment the author’s entries. It is the aim of this paper to prove that, on one hand, blogs take political debates to the next level and, on the other hand, in final calculation this phenomenon is positive for democracy development.

Nevertheless, it must be stated that despite the fact blogs are, at least in theory, private Internet political diaries (after all this is the main purpose behind the web quasi-service), in fact they merely constitute (more and more frequently) elements of sophisticated political game. In a blog you are free to air your opinions, which you would not or could not share in front of a TV camera, in a radio or newspaper interview. This is the domain where politicians could use specific rhetoric. Blogs tend to feature words and characteristics, which are harsh and extremely personal. Their form and style make blogs the most aggressive elements of political discourse. After any unsuccessful clash with another politician (for instance, in a popular TV or radio programme) or an unfavourable press release, it is the blog where the defeated take revenge (in a ruthless and unrefined manner). Furthermore, it is here that a blogger can retaliate easily and without any repercussions whatsoever. There seems to be a certain unwritten rule at work, which says that every blogger can blog back. In reality it means that if you happen to come into harsh criticism (insults, slanders, etc.) at the Internet diary, your rebuttal can take the same form and manner. It appears evident that representatives of various parts of the political arena entered into a certain agreement, by virtue of which they are at liberty to sling mud at one another without any consequences at an Internet website. If in fact this is the case, then in the political show (with the traditional mass media playing the key role) a blog is a crucial valve, thanks to which all problems are kept at bay. Interestingly enough this process is international and common for various cultural circles.

Blogging has undoubtedly become an element of mass culture, as it is fundamental to the World Wide Web, which is one of the most prevalent web services. However, bloggers do not necessarily fit the generally accepted paradigm of mass public. I would rather describe them as politically involved Internet users, who, from the point of view of Internet-related issues investigation, do not match the description of a regular Internet user – a consumer of the symbolic content of the cyberspace. They do not passively browse through popular Internet portals (as it is the case for millions of average users of the global computer network). They are more viewers and participants, who make contributions to the show. Posts submitted by Internet users are saved on a server of a particular blog and can be read at a website, unless they are removed by the author (and, most frequently, an administrator). By rule administrators do not intervene or act upon the content of discussion fora. Under extreme circumstances, they remove posts which violate the accepted rules and regulations or generally approved norms or standards. Hence, administration is not (or at least by definition, should not be) so much about censorship but about elimination of vulgar and widely understood inappropriate posts (among others, advertisements). However, the task is challenging as political discussions always come with extreme emotions. For many it is an opportunity of a lifetime – for the first time in the history of mass media, every participant of the political show can type his mind bluntly and juicily. He no longer has to shout at the top of his voice at a political rally (where additionally he could be pilloried), march in a manifestation (against or in favour of a given cause), leave his home or even an armchair. This entertainment is perfect for all those hungry for political sensations, who stand firmly by their beliefs. The extra perk is that it is all done anonymously. Particularly sly bloggers would even use their neighbours’ names to sign their posts. At this point, the illusion of anonymity will not be elaborated on. Recapitulating, an Internet diary of a public figure constitutes a unique place in the cyberspace, where particular (social or political) affiliations can be easily expressed. Furthermore, it is also a place to observe social moods and collective expectations.

It should be emphasized that the Internet is very different from other mass media. Reporters, rather than politicians, inform us about politicians‘ activities. Hundreds of people come to meet a politician, while thousands come to a rally. Several hundred thousand readers can read about the meeting in a newspaper, while several millions can watch a TV report about it. Traditional media mediate between politicians and the public in the political show. This middleman is required but not always favourable and criticised. By creating an Internet blog, a politician gives up the burdensome mediation service. Whatever he writes at a cyberspace blog directly reaches the public, and the other way round. As a consequence, this can be seen as a specific type of a media show.

This paper analyzes the influence of the Internet on the widely understood political culture. The influence is exerted, among others, by blogs, which are used as tools in political debates (often battles). This subject is a continuation of the problem I took up five years ago at the 2004 Ethicomp conference in Greece in “The direction of evolution of “the political culture” in times of violent expansion of informative techniques”. As a result, this will also be an interesting endeavour to make reference to the statements made by me back then, which pertained to the positive influence of the cutting-edge ICT on the political culture. To support my thesis I analyze blogs of Polish politicians from the 2007 parliamentary elections till now. The stormy character of the Polish political scene should deliver good and interesting arguments. I compare Polish blogging with examples from other countries. I perceive the notion of political culture as Marceli Kosman. I base my understanding of the term “blog” on definition given by Core Doctorow and Grzegorz Mazurek.

REFERENCES

Blood R. (2001).We’ve Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture. London

Castells M. (2001). The Internet Galaxy. New York.

Doctorow C., Dornfest R., Johnson J.S., Powers S., Trott B., Trott M.G. (2002). Essential blogging. Sebastopol, CA

Ess C. (2009). Digital Media Ethics. Cambridge, Malden

Hales C.F. (2008). The information society: development perspectives. Rzeszow

Jerzy Wieczorkowski A. (2008). Blog – widziane z fosy. Warszawa

Kosman M. [ed.] (2000). Kultura polityczna w Polsce. Poznan

Mazurek G. (2008). Blogi i wirtualne spolecznosci – wykorzystanie w marketingu. Cracow

Sekula P. (2009). Kultura polityczna a konsolidacja demokracji. Cracow

Wojtaszak, A., Wybranowski D. (2002). Wybrane problemy teorii polityki. Szczecin

AUTHOR
Elin Palm

ABSTRACT

Increasingly, government agencies offer citizens their services online – a development that sometimes is described in terms of a shift to a “paperless government”. Correctly used, it is hoped that e-Government may increase transparency and civic involvement. The EU action plan on e-Government promotes a more efficient and easily accessible digital government. It requires EU Member States to “ensure that by 2010 all citizens, including socially disadvantaged groups, become major beneficiaries of e-Government, and European public administrations deliver public information and services that are more easily accessible and increasingly trusted by the public, through innovative use of ICT, increasing awareness of the benefits of e-Government and improved skills and support for all users” (the “i2010 e-Government Action Plan: Accelerating e-Government in Europe for the Benefit of All”). The extent to which individual member states offer on-line services vary however.

In Sweden, ranked in top on the United Nations’ 2008 e-Government Readiness Index (The Cap Gemini Ernst & Young survey on electronic Public Services in Europe, 2006), a long-standing governmental goal has been to create the “24 hours authority” – an electronic service available 24 hours a day 7 days a week, providing Swedish citizens access to public services and contact with all government authorities and agencies. Although the encompassing e-Government has not been launched as planned, a significant number of governmental services are made available online. Increasingly, Swedish citizens rely on e-services for tax issues, pensions, parents’ allowance and health insurance.

Nevertheless, projects aimed at the establishment of e-Government are typically considered difficult and to include a large amount of risk (Heeks, 2006, Heeks and Stanforth, 2007). Information security issues like confidentiality and reliability make up serious challenges. Most e-services are based on ICT and share the general vulnerabilities of the Internet infrastructure.

The expanding field of on-line governmental service implies that an increasing amount of personal information is collected and transferred via channels that may be difficult to secure from a technical perspective.

Importantly, e-services are beneficial both to service users and service providers and e-Government implies easy access to vital services irrespective of time and location. Using the Internet to apply for sick-leave reimbursement or to declare taxes is obviously efficient and convenient. In particular, it has been emphasized that individuals with impaired mobility may gain substantially from not having to visit a government agency in person and from not having to employ a proxy to conduct these tasks on their behalf. Governmental agencies benefit in terms of enhanced efficiency by saving time on reduced paper work and by allowing for direct access (transparency).

Just like e-services are to the advantage of service providers and service users, both parties are subject to risks. In order to utilize e-services, users typically create online profiles by providing person specific data such as social security number, address, financial and martial status etc and information relevant for the particular service such as reasons for and duration of sick leave. Information in electronic files or registers may be sensitive to the service users and inadequate system security may enable unauthorized users to change or erase the information. It may also prevent government agencies from fulfilling their duties and exercising their services. If information in electronic files or registers are changed or erased by unauthorized users, a government agency’s decision to grant reimbursement for e.g. sick-leave may err if based on incorrect or incomplete information. More to the point, incidents may undermine public trust in the agencies and their services.

The emerging e-service society increases the need for well functioning information security – both system security and security of personal data (Brey in:. Petkovic and Jonker, 2008). That is, data protection requires both robust technical systems to protect the data and awareness of proper and ethically defensible ways of handling the information to be collected and processed. It is crucial to find a proper balance between the social costs and benefits when securing e-governmental services and safeguarding the privacy of citizens. This paper provides an analysis of the meaning and value of “privacy”, “transparency”, “public access to official documents” and “data protection” in relation to online services and e-Government. It explores the issue of balance from an ethical perspective and presents an analysis of attitudes to privacy and data protection among representatives of six Swedish governmental agencies. Ethical aspects of reasonable use and access to and control over personal data are discussed as well as the task of balancing these interests.

REFERENCES

Brey, P., Ethical Aspects of Information Security and Privacy in: Security and Trust in Modern Data Management (eds. M. Petcovic, W. Jonker), Berlin Heidelberg New York: Springer, 2008.

Heeks, R., Implementing and Managing eGovernment – An International text, SAGE, London, 2006.

Heeks, R. and C. Stanforth, “Understanding eGovernment project trajectories from an actor-network perspective”, European Journal of Information Systems, 16, 2007.

The Cap Gemini Ernst & Young survey on electronic Public Services in Europe, 2006 and the “i2010 e-Government Action Plan: Accelerating e-Government in Europe for the Benefit of All” under;
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/i2010/docs/benchmarking/online_availability_2006.pdf 2009-07-24

AUTHOR
Ugo Pagallo

ABSTRACT

Ethical issues related to robots are cutting the edge nowadays. It suffices to mention the “Roboethics Roadmap” of the European Robotics Research Roadmap (EURON) from 2007, in which:

• The specificity of robotics is stressed and three “main positions” for roboethics are proposed; namely, disinterested in ethics, interested in short-term ethical questions, and involved with long-term ethical concerns;
• A roboethics taxonomy is presented by distinguishing humanoids, advanced production systems, adaptive robot servants, network and outdoor robotics, health care and life quality robots, military robotics, and edutainment-related robotics);
• The particularity of the problems arisen in each particular field is pointed out: For example, dealing with humanoids, we should tackle the reliability of their internal evaluation systems, the unpredictability of their behavior, the traceability of evaluation and actions procedures, as well as matters of safety and security. While “wrong action can lead to dangerous situations for living beings and the environment, (…) ill-intentioned people [could] modify the robot’s behavior in dangerous and fraudulent ways.” (EURON’s Roboethics Roadmap, 7.1.4)

In order to analyze some of the ethics-related issues of robotics in today’s debate – foremost, liability and agency – this paper is presented in five sections.

First of all, I suggest to adopt a legal perspective: Let aside Leibniz’s seminal remarks on machines and the law, there is in fact a long and well-established tradition on this topic. The “Automaton’s law” was a very popular subject among German scholars in the late 1800s: See for instance Günther’s Das Automatenrecht from 1891, Schiller’s Rechtsverhältnisse des Automen from 1898, and Neumond’s Der Automat from 1899. Hence, this tradition would provide a common framework which represents a good starting point for dealing with robots and ethics. Since “there is no single generally accepted moral theory, and only a few generally accepted morals (…), the legal framework provides a system for understanding agency and responsibility, so we will not need to wait for a final resolution of which moral theory is ‘right’ or what moral agency ‘really is’ in order to begin to address the ethical issues currently facing robotics.” (Asaro 2007, p. 2)

In the second section, I examine a more recent proposal, applying elements of Ancient Roman legislation on slaves to autonomous agents like robots.

Following Andrew Katz (2008), the analogy is really instructive: “Like a slave, an autonomous agent has no rights or duties itself. Like a slave, it is capable of making decisions which will affect the rights (and, in later law) the liability of its master. By facilitating commercial transactions, autonomous agents have the ability to increase market efficiency [via their peculium]. Like a slave, an autonomous agent is capable of doing harm.” (op. cit., p. 3)

In section 3, I stress some flaws of the analogy and, more particularly, of the parallelism between the status of a slave as a ‘thing’ and the opinion that robots are ‘things.’ On one hand, Ancient Roman law is much more complex than what is generally presented by current experts in robotics. On the other hand, the risk of the analogy is an anthropocentric standpoint which falls short in coping with today’s ethics-related issues of robotics. However, the analogy catches one important aspect, in that robots’ behavior should be considered in terms of alternative forms of legal responsibility for others’ behavior (e.g., tort law and vicarious liability in the common law tradition and its counterpart in civil law systems, i.e., objective responsibility).

In section 4, I explain why this new form of liability, pace Asaro, suggest we rethink the traditional legal framework in the light of the current debate in ethics. A good standpoint is offered by Floridi and Sanders’ (2004) remarks on “the morality of artificial agents” so as to properly define the idea of agency and to separate the concerns of morality and responsibility of the agents. Moreover, the specificity of both ethical and legal issues concerning robotics is examined in connection with Bynum’s (2006) general account of the nature of information ethics and the idea that what is good or bad, even in robots’ behavior, can be defined as anything that improves or damages the informational nature of the universe.

The conclusion is that the analogy of Roman slaves should be cautiously used both for legal and ethical reasons: While some scholars (Moravec, 1999) have already suggested a sort of 21st Century Hegelian-like master-slave dialectics, it is important to understand the uniqueness of the problems we are going to face in terms of moral agency and legal responsibility for others’ behavior.

REFERENCES

Asaro, P. (2007), Robots and Responsibility from a Legal Perspective, Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Robotics and Automation, Workshop on Roboethics, Rome, April 14, 2007.

Bynum, T. W. (2006), Flourishing Ethics, Ethics and Information Technology, 8, pp. 157-173.

Euron Roboethics Roadmap (2007), available at http://www.roboethics.org/icra2007/contributions/VERUGGIO%20Roboethics%20Roadmap%20Rel.1.2.pdf

Floridi, L., and Sanders, J. W. (2004), On the Morality of Artificial Agents, Minds and Machine, 14, 3, pp. 349-379.

Katz, A. (2008), Intelligent Agents and Internet Commerce in Ancient Rome, Society for Computers and Law, published on line 15.10.08.

Moravec, H. (1999), Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, New York, Oxford University Press.