Move over, 6 Million Dollar Man, and make room for the 7.5 Million Dollar Moral Robot. The Office of Naval Research is doling out $7.5 million in grants to researchers at Tufts, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Brown, Yale, and Georgetown “to explore how to build a sense of right and wrong and moral consequence into autonomous robotic systems.” 

UPDATE: A related article on the moral psychology of human-robot relations, in the context of military robots and driverless cars (via Cristin Chall).

UPDATE 2 (5/17/14): Stephen Colbert’s take on making moral robots.