Gentle Machines, Tough Questions: Ethics in Soft Robotics

Ethics in robotics is an increasingly topical issue due to the significant recent advances, especially in artificial intelligence. Soft robots represent a subgroup of robots that must be analyzed separately since they present a series of unique characteristics defined by their soft and compliant nature. In this paper, we consider the ethical issues related to soft robotics and how the scientific community is trying to address them. Two areas have been identified which present significant and pressing ethical challenges: human–robot interaction and environment-robot interaction. For each of these groups, the different applications and the consequent ethical issues are explored, and possible future scenarios for soft robotics and their ethical components are discussed.