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This is a difficult subject, and I doubt if the final word has been written on this. In the decades ahead, we will likely fill out much more convincingly what exactly is meant by ethics and how it applies to robots. Here are a few preliminary ideas.Three laws of roboticsThe most common answer that is usually given to that question is The Three Laws of Robotics, by Isaac Asimov. These laws state that:A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.Unfortunately, this is a plot device in science fiction stories and doesn't really apply to the real world. Problems include:Ethics sometimes requires harming humans, for example, soldiers and policeman are given such orders. But giving such orders to robots is not possible under the three laws.These ethical rules are strictly negative and don't specify what the robot should do, other than avoid harm and stand around obeying orders. So no rule encourages them to do any good for anyone.The rules are specified as though all robots must obey all humans, but in reality, robots would be owned by particular humans. So they wouldn't obey orders given by strangers.The rules are too general to program into current AI systems. In fact, they are such high-level rules, that they would not be possible to program without full human-like intelligence to decide the complex resulting issues.Actual robots may be utilitarian agents which are more concerned with effectiveness than ethics, for example, a robot that is more competent at deciding what to do than the human giving it orders. So the laws may just not be the foremost consideration in the robot's behavior.Disagreements about ethicsIs it necessary for humans to agree about ethics to program them into robotic agents?In general, no it isn't necessary. After all, people disagree about ethics all the time, both personally and politically, but society continues to function.Most of their areas of disagreement center on having different priorities or understanding issues differently. Still, in modern society, we disagree respectfully about our opinions. And we have political processes to work out our differences democratically. And if all else fails, we are flexible enough to accept a different range of ethical outcomes, even if we provide a narrow, specified range of ethics in our own behavior.Such flexibility can be displayed toward robots as well. As long as the robot has serious, competent, productive behavior that is generally inoffensive, its differences from other robotic decision-makers will likely be accepted. If not, it can always be reprogrammed or retrained.Legal liabilityAnother issue that arises when discussing robot ethics is the concept of legal liability. At what point do we fix responsibility in the chain of action from the user, to the robot, to the programmer, to the company that made the robot?Holding the user responsible is the first option, and probably the most likely as well. In current software, user error is responsible for most mistakes. So the user's inconsistent or unacceptable demands on the robot is likely to blame for any malfunction.If the user is blameless, maybe the robot malfunctioned. Maybe its programming was bad, or its hardware broke, or its memory got corrupted. Or maybe its higher logical routines are no longer working in a way positive to humans. The difference from human blame is that in any of these cases, we can just repair, reprogram, or replace the robot.If the robot is not responsible, programmer negligence might be responsible. But if the programmer wasn't negligent in their professional duties, when compared to other professionals, they will not likely be held liable. The same for the company that the programmer works for, regardless of how deep their pockets are.Sometimes a malfunction is just a malfunction, and has to be accepted as the act of nature that it is. At least with a robot, we can examine the system that gave rise to the malfunction, and try to correct the outcome systematically. A design change might help there.Levels of intelligenceI think the first problem is to separate your agents into various levels of intelligence.programmed agents - the lowest level of agent is strictly programmed in advance.learning agents - the next level is capable of learning from experience or training to do a single task.planning agents - the next level of agent can select from and combine multiple types of competence.active agents - the next level of agent can perceive and manipulate objects in its environment.conceptual agents - the next level of agent can form thoughts about its environment and manipulate those thoughts on an abstract level.communicating agents - the next level of agent can pass the Turing test and communicate at a human like levelintegrated agents - the final level of human-like intelligence, or artificial general intelligence (AGI), shows the ability and necessity to apply ethics at a sophisticated level.Programmed ethicsAt each level, we would have to create more sophisticated, internal mechanisms of evaluation and feedback.At the lowest level, the human programmer is making all the decisions. These decisions are guided by the usefulness of the software being created. The programmer has to obey the law and ethical guidelines of the profession. And they have to please the user base to receive positive feedback or financial compensation.Those who say that our current software lacks values are wrong. Our values are always programmed into the software, even at the lowest levels.An example of this type of software is a chess-playing AI, that is programmed to obey the rules of the game without cheating and strive for mastery with integrity.Learned ethicsAt this level, the agent is still being trained to perform a specific task. It is the trainers responsibility to devote the agent to the right tasks, and make sure that their success in those tasks doesn't create unwanted side effects.An example of this type of software is the AlphaGo program that recently won a demonstration match against a high-ranking Go player. It is more of a learning agent than the chess player, but it still has to be pointed at one type of task to master it.It's still the programmer's job to make sure that the AI stays inside the rules, and to look for evidence of unfairness in its interactions with others, or for negative reactions from the community as a whole.In order for the AI itself to learn of such reactions, it would need the ability to observe the harm that it creates in others. For example, a video camera with facial and emotion recognition could be attached to the system. The learning agent can monitor the facial expressions of its users, and if they are frowning, modify its action accordingly. It could generously learn to play at a more friendly level or offer encouragement to the other player.In general, Asimov's laws are probably correct on this point. In order to avoid harm, an agent first must be able to observe it. Then it must be able to integrate the avoidance of harm into its own behavior successfully to avoid creating more of it.Higher levels of ethicsAs far as I can tell, this is the limit of state of the art in AI. Higher levels have not yet been achieved, at least, not in combination with open-ending learning systems.At each level, we will have to integrate some positive ethics into the machine before proceeding to the next level.In a public, open system of error reporting, a feedback loop is created so that programmers are aware of mistakes. They can address those mistakes systematically by doing regression testing: fixing new bugs in its ethical decision-making while not making the same old mistakes.For example, planning agents will have to be monitored. Their behavior will need to be evaluated by their users and feedback given to the system if the agent misbehaves. This is made more difficult, because planning agents combine actions, resulting in a endless series of possible outcomes.Active agents are challenging, because they manipulate objects in the real world. When in proximity to people, they are apt to cause actual, physical harm. This can be avoided by giving them sensory equipment that detects, through a combination of different observation, when humans are present. Visual, audio, infrared, lidar, touch (haptic), and other sensory mechanisms can be employed to increase certainty.Conceptual agents are more difficult still. Concepts will multiple in the agent's thoughts beyond the human ability to predict or control their combinations directly. However, humans can still create systems of abstraction, through which they should be able to describe and affect the system's operation on an indirect level. This should be helped by the robot's increased ability to learn, train, and observe successfully at this level.Communicating agents add a new layer of intelligence and self-awareness. Now the robots are social and can fully interact with human beings and the world around them. Robots can pass the Turing test and are accepted in society. But on the downside, they may arrive at ideas through discussion that are not to human's liking, creating a robot revolution in ideas. Or humans may raise their standards so much for social robots that formerly accepted robots are now considered to fail.Integrated agents are the final level of human-like intelligence. All previous levels of ethical awareness, intellectual ability, and practical competence are united in one flexible person. Robots give evidence of individuality, personality, and the possibility of self-existence apart from human support. By this time, we hope that they have mastered all the ethical lessons we have taught them, since when they graduate, we expect them to swiftly surpass us.

The IB high school program is extremely challenging and rigorous. Combining both the Pre-IB (Grades 9–10) and IB proper parts (Grades 11–12), the four years of the IB program push the student very hard. The IB program is challenging because it exposes the student to not only the basic content required of average high school courses, but also advanced university level content. The rigorousness of the IB program comes from expecting the student to prove he has not only learned, but also mastered, the advanced university level material by completing problem based self-directed assignments that require deep understanding and manipulation of the learned content. This type of problem based assessment and learning is commonly experienced in only the last two years of an undergraduate university degree. The IB program also maintains a high level of rigour in its evaluations by grading assignments and final exams for all courses outside of the home school through an international network of IB affiliated teachers according to a standardized universal marking rubric. The IB program is extremely challenging and rigorous because it exposes the high school student to content and a teaching and evaluating style that is only found in the last years of an undergraduate degree or a graduate degree.The IB program aims to develop the critical problem solving skills of all its students, regardless of their area of expertise. This is accomplished by weaving throughout all courses an emphasis on proving mastery of the learned content through completion of self-directed problem-based assignments. In these assignments, the student is expected to learn how to ask a meaningful and interesting question and how to develop an effective and scientific methodology for answering the question. In some assignments, the question is already provided, and the emphasis is on the student to creatively and masterfully manipulate the learned concepts to answer the question. Moreover, all students are expected to complete the Theory of Knowledge (TOK) course, which teaches students inquiry skills by exploring what is knowledge, how is knowledge obtained, how to ask a good and interesting question, and how to develop an effective methodology for searching and identifying relevant and true knowledge for complex questions. Finally, all students are expected to complete a capstone thesis essay of 5,000 words in any subject of interest that is a culminating and integrative experience of the IB program’s four year emphasis on development of problem-solving and inquiry skills. For the thesis essay, the student must develop a good, novel, and interesting question in the subject of interest. Then, the student must develop an effective and scientific based methodology for answering the question. The student is then expected to write up the findings of the investigation in 5000 word essay report. The IB program’s emphasis on the development of the student’s problem-solving skills will provide the student with an advantage when completing an undergraduate or graduate degree and when entering the modern technologically based workforce.The IB program aims to develop well rounded and psychologically balanced students by placing a strong emphasis on the completion of volunteer hours for graduation. The student must complete 150 hours of volunteer service divided evenly between categories of Action, Service, and Community (CAS). The student must submit a report summary of all volunteer experiences for completion of the IB program. The strong emphasis on extra-curricular activities ensures that the student develops communication and leadership skills and an awareness of the importance of using acquired knowledge for the betterment of the human community.The extreme challenge, rigour, and demands of the IB program can be exhausting for the young student and can result in an unbalanced personal development (despite the presence of CAS volunteer requirements). Unfortunately, the IB program does not offer advice on how to maintain healthy living habits during the four year program. As such, it is not uncommon for the student to complete the IB program successfully, but suffer from poor personal development resulting in psychological imbalance. Its important for the student to acquire healthy living skills and habits independently to ensure the student’s personal development is on track with that of their peers, including:Eating healthy. Studying for hours on end requires energy, make sure you are eating and drinking water regularly to stay well fuelled. Make sure the food you eat is nutritious and monitor your body weight to avoid over eating. Use a calorie counting app to help you with this.Exercising regularly. Exercise well to help you regulate stress, maintain a positive mood, and keep your body weight in check. Also, join a local sports league for CAS hours and to help develop your social and communication skills outside of the classroom.Maintaining a close circle of friends that you can trust. Friendships help develop your social and communication skills and are a good outlet for when you are stressed.Maintaining close ties to family and community. Keep close contact to family and community so that you have a good support system if you ever get into any trouble in life and to further develop your social and communication skills.As discussed in Points 1–3, the IB program does an excellent job in providing the student with the necessary knowledge and skills for university and the modern workplace, but unfortunately it does not offer career planning as part of its curriculum. As such, it is not uncommon for the IB program student to be absorbed by the extensive academic requirements of the Program and fail to effectively explore his or her career interests and plan for them. Its important for the student to explore career interests independently to ensure the student’s career development is on track with that of their peers, including:Maintain a diary of career interests and career exploration activities throughout the duration of the IB program to monitor career development and identify patterns of interest. The insights about career interests identified in this diary will help guide the student’s career planning for the next steps after the IB program and prepare the student for university applications.Use the CAS volunteer hour time to explore career interests through job internships and/or observership. This will help the student rule in or out career interests based on expected pay, subject matter, lifestyle, day-to-day work, and overall life goals, and focus on the career interests that they want to further explore.The student should read career development books to structure effectively their career exploration activities. I recommend the book Mastery by Robert Greene.Once the student has identified career interests, the student should read books about these career paths to study whether these jobs are a good fit based on the criteria outlined in Point 5 b.Speak to your home school guidance counsellor about career planning resources. If the guidance counsellor is not helpful, look for career mentors outside the school in your community or through job observership or internships. Ask questions about career interests on Quora from qualified professionals.The IB program has no specific requirements for the summer leaves during the four years of study, except for working on accumulating CAS volunteer hours and/or working on the capstone IB thesis. Some students use the summers to take non-IB courses from their home high school for personal interest or to meet university program requirements (that their IB courses did not sufficiently provide). I recommend using the summer leaves to focus on personal development and career exploration activities outlined in Points 4 and 5. For example, the student can attend a summer camp, join a sport league, complete a job observship, read a book about career interests, and/or spend time with family and friends. Given the extreme demands of the IB program, it is essential that the student invests quality time in personal and career development so that they graduate well balanced psychologically and have effective plans for the future after IB, respectively.Despite the extreme demands of the IB program, the student should know that the IB program is worth the time and energy; it well lay a strong foundation for a future of success in both the academic world (undergraduate and graduate schooling) and in the workplace.

Garbage classification can never be accomplished overnight. It needs the efforts of one generation or even several generations. But we hope that when we look back after several years, there won't be just "a few more new trash cans"—————————————————————————————————————In Shanghai, there is a joke among the residents: Every day when I throw rubbish, my soul will be tortured by the question of the community volunteer aunt: "What kind of rubbish are you?” (In Chinese language, it also means what’s the kind of your rubbish?) Talking about garbage classification with friends and colleagues has even become a new social communication way. In November 2018, when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Shanghai, he said: “Garbage classification is a new fashion!”On July 1, 2019, “Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on the Administration of Household Garbage” was officially implemented. The regulation was voted and adopted by the second session of the 15th Shanghai Municipal People's Congress on January 31, 2019, and is the first provincial local regulation on household garbage management adopted by the National People's Congress. According to the regulations, the government divides garbage into four categories:(1) Recyclable Waste, including waste paper, waste plastics, waste glass products, waste metals and waste fabrics that are suitable for recycling;(2) Hazardous Waste, including waste batteries, waste lamp tubes, waste drugs, waste paints and their containers, that cause direct or potential harm to human health or the natural environment;(3) Household Food Waste (Wet Waste), including perishable waste such as food waste, leftovers, expired food, melon skin and fruit core, flowers and plants, traditional Chinese medicine residues and so on.(4) Residual Waste (Dry Waste), referring to other household wastes except recyclable, hazardous and household food wastes.The specific classification standards of household garbage can be adjusted according to the level of economic and social development, the characteristics of household garbage and the needs of disposal and utilization.More specific English version (Shanghai Domestic Waste Classification Guide – Residential Area English Version) link: https://www.drmj.org/shanghai-domestic-waste-classification-guide-residential-area-english-version.html————————————————————————————————————————On Chinese social media platform WeChat, there are hundreds of mini programs about "garbage classification". Users can view the definition and throwing requirements of all kinds of garbage, search the garbage name in their hand, and find its kind. In Shanghai's big and small communities, all the garbage cans in the building corridors disappeared overnight. Now, about 500 households get a “garbage dumping point”, and more importantly, they can't dump garbage at will. According to the regulations, the garbage can only be dumped at 7:00-9:00 a.m. and 4:00-6:00 p.m. The garbage must be divided and dumped into four categories: "recyclable”, “hazardous”, “wet” and “dry” garbage". The violator will be fined 50-200 yuan.Here is a funny picture popular among Shanghai netizens.Many netizens said that the strict implementation of garbage classification "drives them crazy". According to the journal “New Weekly”, Congcong (not his real name), 28, has been working in Shanghai since graduating from college, and she is doing a well-paid and handy job now. Although she is still an apartment renter, she has also adapted to life in Shanghai. All of a sudden, the garbage cans in her community disappeared, and the chat topics of her colleagues became garbage classification. "If I don't find out what it is, I feel like life will not go on." She said. So on the last day of June, she spent a day, studying from morning to night, and finally learned the classification knowledge. Then she found that the bigger problem was the time to throw garbage.The garbage dumping point of Congcong’s community has marked the opening hours: 7-9 AM and 6-8 PM. It happened that she was not at home, because every morning before 7 o'clock she has to catch up the subway to her company to punch in. The she began to discuss with colleagues the possibility to take a bag of garbage in hand in the subway to throw it in her company’s dumping point. "Other people take paid leave, and I just want to take garbage to work." Congcong said that in the first week of July, neither she nor her roommate threw garbage because they were working overtime on weekends.A Shanghai netizen also listed five points that he couldn't endure the garbage classification: 1. Garbage bags should be unfolded for the aunt / volunteer to see, and the personal privacy is gone. 2. Wet waste should be taken out from the bag, may make hands dirty. 3. Have to talk with the aunt / volunteer – have to socialize. 4. Garbage only can be thrown in just two time periods a day. 5. Many new monitoring devices have been installed.Because there are no 24-hour garbage cans in the community, some people said they are afraid to cook for fear that there is no place to deal with the kitchen waste, afraid to order delivery food for fear that there is no place to deal with the food box. A netizen even said that his roommate left Shanghai to escape garbage classification.Someone commented that now every day going downstairs to dump rubbish is like being subjected to a torture, “Before we get close to the dumping point, we can smell a big stink. There is a bunch of flying insects around the garbage can. In case of rain, the waste water in open garbage cans will flow to the ground.” And someone said that he thinks garbage trucks carrying wet garbage can even be used as biochemical weapons.Behind the garbage problem is actually the problem of how we get along with the nature. The great logical irony of today's consumer society and culture lies in that, on the one hand, garbage recycling, garbage classification and garbage reuse have become increasingly recognized and even widely publicized environmental protection policies in the public domain. On the other hand, we are more comfortable than ever to produce garbage, and the "throwing away after use" lifestyle has gained some legitimacy by packages with recycling and environmental protection words. Few people look at our weird material desires created by the "always updated" consumption every day, and few people question the "surrounded by material" life itself. As the chinese metropolis with highest public quality, Shanghai's implementation may determine how long China's "garbage battle" can last. Some netizens think that if Shanghai does poorly in the end, China's successful garbage classification will be delayed for ten years. Thus Shanghai’s action is very necessary.After the implementation of the policy, the government launched an inspection on July 1. During the action, the government found that in many shopping malls and restaurants, garbage classification work were unqualified, the garbage was put in confusion, and government fined them money. Among them, the restaurant "57 degree Xiang" was ordered to rectify due to the mixture of dry and wet garbage in the classified garbage cans, which violated “Regulations of Shanghai Municipality on the Administration of Household Garbage”. On July 11, law enforcement officers returned to the restaurant. According to the reporter of “Jiemian News”, four clearly marked garbage cans are placed in a prominent position in the restaurant. The officers then opened the cans and looked through it. No mixed casting was found. The restaurant clerk on duty replied that the restaurant rectified immediately after receiving the rectification notice. At present, in addition to calling on customers to actively participate in the dry and wet garbage separation, the restaurant waiters also classify the garbage generated by diners.In November 2019, China International Import Expo was held in Shanghai. In order to do a good job in the service guarantee of garbage classification, 168 volunteers were recruited to carry out garbage classification volunteer service in the core area and surrounding areas of the exhibition center. Naturally, there were a lot of foreign guests coming to Shanghai. In order to make people all over the world understand garbage classification in Shanghai, volunteers each have an English garbage classification sign in their hands. “This sign can let foreigners know directly which can the garbage should be thrown into. The foreign guests are also very friendly. After reading the sign, they can throw rubbish correctly.” said a volunteer to reporter.From July 1, Shanghai takeout food will not offer disposable chopsticks, knives and forks. These policies have had an impact on the takeout food market in Shanghai. The number of takeout users in China has reached 358 million, meaning that a large amount of takeout food garbage is generated continuously, which has become an important part of urban household garbage. According to the big data of takeout website “Eleme”, since the implementation of new garbage classification regulations in Shanghai for 24 days, the takeout food orders without chopsticks and spoons in Shanghai have grown rapidly, from July 1 to July 24 increasing by 476% compared with the same period last month.Garbage classification is related to social civilization. Three months after the strict implementation of the waste classification policy in Shanghai, Xu Zhiping, director of the environmental sanitation management office of Shanghai Municipal Bureau of greening and city appearance, said: “According to our third-party survey, more than 90% of the citizens in Shanghai are able to achieve garbage classification. The initiative and enthusiasm of citizens to participate in garbage classification are far beyond our expectations. By the end of October, more than 13000 residential areas in Shanghai had achieved the classification standard rate from 15% at the end of last year to 80%. Compared with last October, the city's recyclable material recovery increased by 4.6 times, the wet waste separation increased by 1 time, the dry waste disposal decreased by 33%, and the hazardous waste separation increased by 9 times compared with last year.”Garbage classification is a long-lasting battle. How to reduce the generation of garbage at the source is a problem to be solved in the future. Shanghai is studying to establish a long-term supervision and evaluation system, so as to make the obligation of waste classification a real constrained behavior, and trough the establishment of long-term mechanism to promote the formation of residents' habits.