Cyber Security for Humanoid Robots

The issue of security has become a hot topic when looking at the future of robotics. The present concern is that robots who could learn to interact with humans would inevitably need to store data about the daily lives of those individuals that the robot knows. A robot designed to assist people would need to be able to learn to navigate through their house and it would need to know where different items are kept. A robot like this would be perfect for someone with a physical disability, however it makes them vulnerable to a variety of new cyber crimes. Proper encryption could hep to protect owner's personal information but there is still risks. Gaining access to the information stored by one of these hypothetical robots could be accomplished with no greater difficulty than with which other cyber-crimes are committed. At the moment there little cause for concern. as Nicolas Rigaud of Aldebaran Robotics makes clear "[The market for robots in consumer households] doesn't exist yet".

Another issue that I want to bring up is with copyrights. What happens in the event that a robot reads a book to someone, or sees a photo. Basically the robot would be storing copyrighted content. We have no way for robots to determine what content is something important to remember, and what is intellectual property. However, this may be one area where this will end up being allowed, since there is no threat of a robot filing a patent or trying to make money off of someone else's intellectual property.