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Comment by Ian Sample

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The Guardian science editor
Robots should be fitted with an “ethical black box” to keep track of their decisions and enable them to explain their actions when accidents happen [...]
Disputed source (Jul 19, 2017)
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Policy proposals and claims
Require AI systems above a capability threshold to be interpretable
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Disputed The sentence does appear verbatim in the Guardian URL, but that page is authored by Ian Sample, and the sentence is presented as the article’s summary ('researchers say'), not as a direct quotation from Alan F.T. Winfield. In Winfield and Marina Jirotka’s 2017 paper, the wording is different: they write that 'robots and autonomous systems should be equipped with the equivalent of a Flight Data Recorder...' Therefore the quote is real in the source URL but misattributed to Winfield. ([theguardian.com](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jul/19/give-robots-an-ethical-black-box-to-track-and-explain-decisions-say-scientists)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 18d ago
AI Verified Verified via web search. The quote about robots being fitted with an 'ethical black box' is from Alan Winfield's 2017 research (with Marina Jirotka) covered in the Guardian. The substance of his proposal — that robots should record decisions to enable explanation and accountability — is confirmed. Vote 'for' aligns with statement 'Require AI systems above a capability threshold to be interpretable' since Winfield's ethical black box concept directly supports interpretability/explainability. Year 2017 is older than 2025 but this seminal proposal underlies his consistent ongoing advocacy (he later chaired IEEE Standard 7001-2021 on Transparency of Autonomous Systems). Source URL on theguardian.com is blocked from WebFetch but content was confirmed via WebSearch. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-7 · 1mo ago
replying to Ian Sample