Ronald C. Arkin

Ronald C. Arkin is an American roboticist and roboethicist recognized for his contributions to robotics, artificial intelligence, and robot ethics. Arkin has served as a Regents' Professor in the School of Interactive Computing, College of Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. After earning his doctorate, Arkin joined Georgia Tech, where he founded the Mobile Robot Laboratory and became the first Regents' Professor in the College of Computing's history. His scholarly work has been cited extensively, spanning artificial intelligence, robotics, robot ethics, and autonomous agents.

Arkin's research interests include human-robot interaction, robot ethics, behavior-based reactive control, action-oriented perception for mobile robots and unmanned aerial vehicles, hybrid deliberative/reactive software architectures, robot survivability, multi-agent robotic systems, bio-robotics, and learning in autonomous systems. He has authored more than 170 technical publications and is known for the book "Behavior-Based Robotics" and for developing the motor schema technique in robot navigation. His research, supported by organizations such as the National Science Foundation, DARPA, Sony, and Samsung, has focused on autonomous, behavior-based robotics and ethical considerations in robotics.

A significant portion of Arkin's work addresses the ethics of autonomous weapons systems. The United States Department of Defense contracted Arkin to study whether military robots could operate ethically. Drawing on collaborations with the U.S. Army Research Office, DARPA, the Office of Naval Research, and defense industry contractors, Arkin explored the development of an artificial conscience in robots—humane-oids—that could potentially perform more ethically than humans on the battlefield. These concepts are detailed in his book "Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots," which examines the philosophical foundations, motivation, theory, and design recommendations for implementing ethical control and reasoning systems in autonomous robot systems, with consideration for the Laws of War and Rules of Engagement.

Arkin has provided expert testimony to the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Pentagon, and other organizations on autonomous systems technology. He served as a founding co-chair of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Technical Committee on Robot Ethics, co-chair of the Society's Human Rights and Ethics Committee, and as a member of the National Science Foundation's Robotics Council. Internationally, Arkin has served as a STINT Visiting Professor at the Centre for Autonomous Systems at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, and held a Sabbatical Chair at the Sony Intelligence Dynamics Laboratory in Tokyo, Japan.

Arkin was elected a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence for his work in behavior-based robotics and ethical reasoning in autonomous systems and was also named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for his advancements in intelligent robotic systems. His honors include the Joseph Engelberger Robotics Award from the Robotics Industries Association for lifetime achievements in robotics research and education. Arkin's career bridges engineering and moral philosophy, contributing to ongoing discussions about autonomous machines and the ethical responsibilities they entail.