Getting ready for the next step: Merging information ethics and roboethics-A project in the context of marketing ethics

Abstract

This article presents some pressing issues on roboethics, which lie at the frontier between roboethics and information ethics. It relates them to the well-established field of marketing ethics, stressing two main points. First, that human attention and willpower is limited and susceptible to be exploited. Second, that the possibility of using consumer profiles considerably increases the possibility of manipulation. It presents the interactions with robots as a particularly intense setting, in which the humanlike presence and the possibility of tailoring communications to the profile of the human target can be especially problematic. The paper concludes with some guidelines that could be useful in limiting the potentially harmful effects of human-robot interactions in the context of information ethics. These guidelines focus on the need for transparency and the establishment of limits, especially for products and services and vulnerable collectives, as well as supporting a healthy attention and willpower.