Helen Greiner of iRobot gave a keynote address this morning, Tom has great commentary.

I asked her after the event, a very specific question based on some past speculation here. A question on their ‘Bloodhound’ research project and whether their battlefield medical robots would have the Hippocratic oath at the core of their behaviour.

Would these robots that are tasked to shield the fallen on a battlefield limit their care to those on ‘their side’?

Greiner replied that they would not, and they would attend to all endangered human life, of whatever stripe. That the Hippocratic oath, or behaviour in its spirit would have to be encoded into such robots.

Update
Helen Greiner posts the following comment:

“That’s not true. I would never say this. It way way beyond the state of the art technically. We simply can’t program the hippocratic oath into a robot.

I said that the Combat Medics would be controlling these robots for the time being. If the medic is a doctor, he is bound by the hippocratic oath. If not, my understanding is that combat medics try to save ALL lives.

This work is still very much research, but we look forward to the day when robots can amplify the reach of the combat medics.”

Apologies to Helen for misconstruing her answer at Etech.