The term “roboethics” is due to Gianmarco Veruggio, who introduced it in a workshop at the 2005 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. The term is more popular in Europe than in the US. This book presents a remarkably complete and concise approach to the field of robot ethics.

The book covers a wide range of topics, from both the engineering and philosophical points of view. It is evident that the author, a control systems engineer, learned a great deal of philosophy in order to write this book.

Following an introductory chapter, chapter 2 is devoted to a compact review of the field of ethics, including various theories, and a review of the codes of ethics of several professional societies. Then, following chapters on artificial intelligence and an extensive review of the field of robotics, is a chapter on roboethics, which brings together some of the material from the previous chapters. The following chapters deal with robot ethics as applied in various fields, such as medical robotics, assistive robotics, human-robot interaction (termed “socialized robotics” in the book), and military robotics. Then, an interesting chapter deals with robotics and roboethics in Japan, in order to introduce the reader to the influence of culture on the field.

This book is complete enough to make it suitable as a textbook (with additional references) for a standalone course on robot ethics, or as a supplementary text for a course in robotics.