Stanford CIS
Patrick Lin

Patrick Lin

Affiliate Scholar

Patrick Lin is the director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group, based at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he is also a philosophy professor. He has published several books and papers in the field of technology ethics, especially with respect to robotics—including Robot Ethics (MIT Press, 2012) and Robot Ethics 2.0 (Oxford University Press, 2017)—human enhancement, cyberwarfare, space exploration, nanotechnology, and other areas. He teaches courses in ethics, political philosophy, technology ethics, and philosophy of law. Dr. Lin has appeared in international media such as BBC, Forbes, National Public Radio (US), Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Reuters, Science Channel, Slate, The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor, The Times (UK), Wired, and others (see this page for more).

Dr. Lin is currently or has been affiliated with several other leading organizations, including: Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society, Stanford's School of Engineering (CARS), 100 Year Study on AI, World Economic Forum, New America Foundation, UN Institute for Disarmament Research, University of Notre Dame, University of Iceland's Centre for Arctic Policy Studies, US Naval Academy, and Dartmouth College.  He earned his BA from University of California at Berkeley, and MA and PhD from University of California at Santa Barbara.

Recent articles

Press

Cyberwarfare: No New Ethics Needed

In an interesting recent essay in the Atlantic – ‘Is it Possible to Wage a Just Cyberwar?’ – Patrick Lin, Fritz Allhoff, and Neil Rowe argue that events such as…

Press

Could a cyberwar ever be ethical?

The Atlantic has published a fascinating article about how the ongoing digital revolution is changing the face of war, and how military and government leaders a…

Blog

Robot ethics book released by MIT Press

I am pleased to announce that our edited volume Robot Ethics: The Social and Ethical Implications of Robotics has now been released by MIT Press. The preface a…

Blog

My CIA briefing on robot ethics

From The Atlantic: Robots are replacing humans on the battlefield--but could they also be used to interrogate and torture suspects? This would avoid a serious…

Blog

Robot Ethics: A Crash Course

Here's a preview of my forthcoming paper on robot ethics (with co-authors Keith Abney and George Bekey) in Artificial Intelligence journal, one of the best…

Blog

Robots, Ethics & War

Related to my work here in robot ethics, the following is an advance look at my paper forthcoming in Journal of Military Ethics: Military 2.0: Ethical Blowba…