Social robots promise tremendous benefits as they increasingly penetrate domains once exclusive to humans, from elder care to childcare to social work. Yet their growing capacities for autonomous decision-making and emotional simulation raise knotty ethical questions we’ve only begun confronting.

Defined by direct interaction with people in social settings, social robots like home assistants differ fundamentally from industrial counterparts focused wholly on function. While still constrained by their programming, social robots are specifically designed to communicate naturally, recognize emotions, and make semi-independent judgments fitting human norms and environments.

This very social competence opens an ethical can of worms. As robots advise us, care for us, and potentially even rule on us, how can we ensure their judgments align with moral values? If they err, who bears responsibility? Do we risk eroding human dignity by ceding such sensitive decisions to soulless machines? The stakes only grow as algorithms eclipse human intelligence and robots simulate emotions like caring, joy and remorse.

Three perspectives currently shape debates on robot ethics. “Roboethics” develops guidelines for roboticists and policymakers governing responsible development, use and regulation. “Ethics of robotics” focuses on moral codes programmed directly into robots, judging actions as ethical if they follow set instructions. Most ambitiously, “ethics for robots” confers full agency upon advanced AI to make independent moral choices as ethical beings.

Most experts believe today’s robots lack capacity for robust autonomous reasoning required in that top scenario. Instead, prevailing approaches emphasize correct top-down programming overlaid with bottom-up machine learning for adapting judgments. This hybrid model combines defined rulesets optimizing behavior with flexibility to navigate novel situations absent strict protocols. The goal is coherent “ethical governors” constraining detrimental actions.

Programming such governors, however, surfaces tensions between utilitarian and deontological ethics. Utilitarians judge actions by their outcomes, allowing hypothetically immoral means justified by moral ends. Deontologists, in contrast, prize strict adherence to moral rules rejecting certain means entirely regardless of benefits. These schools frequently conflict in programming social robots.

Take famous “Three Laws of Robotics” from Isaac Asimov decreeing no harming humans or, through inaction, allowing harm. A utilitarian social robot may break this code and lie to prevent greater harm - but deontologically has still committed an ethical breach violating strict duties of truthfulness. These dilemmas have very real impacts programming algorithms governing self-driving cars, parole recommendations, loan approvals and more.

Hybrid approaches thus integrate complementary strengths of top-down rules and bottom-up situational responsiveness. But debates rage on balancing competing moral frameworks adjusted to circumstances. Getting this right may require civilizational-scale iteration blending evidence and values - our species’ specialty.

Assuming companies solve the profound technical challenge of moral machines, ethical questions persist around human-robot relationships. As emotional bonds between people and social robots deepen, how will we safeguard human dignity? Can we prevent these tools from eroding foundational values around family, responsibility and meaning subtly but surely?

Here too, nuanced "co-robotic" ethics must emerge respecting machines’ capacities while grounding their purposes in the service of humankind. Designing robots as moral prostheses for human flourishing rather than substitutes may point one fruitful direction.

Technical mastery alone cannot resolve such questions; our answers must draw sustenance from the deepest wells of culture. But this begins by confronting the awe-inspiring opportunities and threats our increasing reliance on intelligent machines poses. With care, wisdom and humility, perhaps we can yet navigate this brave new world.