Ajung Moon facts for kids

Ajung Moon is a scientist from Korea and Canada who builds and tests robots. She focuses on making sure robots are designed and used in a fair and safe way. This includes robots that can interact with people and smart systems that can make their own choices.

She is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at McGill University. She also leads the McGill Responsible Autonomy & Intelligent System Ethics (RAISE) lab. Her work looks at how humans and robots interact. She also studies the rules and ideas about what is right and wrong when using AI and robots.

Before joining McGill University, she helped the UN Secretary-General with digital cooperation. She also started a company called Generation R Consulting, which advised on AI ethics. She also created a non-profit group called the Open Roboethics Institute. Today, she is part of the Government of Canada Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence.

Her Studies and Work

Ajung Moon was born in Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea. She earned her Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) in Mechanical Engineering in 2014 from the University of British Columbia. Her studies focused on how humans and robots interact and the ethics of robots.

She believes that when humans and machines work together, there might be disagreements. Humans usually talk and find solutions. However, robots do not understand feelings or morals. This makes it hard for them to negotiate or make decisions in the same way.

In 2012, she finished her master's degree at the University of British Columbia. Her project was about how robots could show they were unsure, like humans do. This helped when robots and humans needed to share things. Her Ph.D. research looked at how humans and robots could solve problems together.

Today, Moon is an assistant professor at McGill University. She teaches in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Teamwork and Projects

Ajung Moon has worked on several important projects:

• She helped with a project about how technology is used in autonomous weapons. These are weapons that can make decisions on their own. This was for the International Panel for the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons in 2017.
• She also worked on how computers are used with these autonomous weapons. This was also for the International Panel for the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons in 2017.
• She was a main researcher for a study on the rules and ideas for Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems. This means robots that can decide to use force without a human directly controlling them. This project was done by the Open Roboethics Institute in 2015.
• She worked on a study about how robots can use hand movements to give instructions to humans in factories. This was published in the International Journal of Robotics Research in 2017.

In the News

You can find Ajung Moon in these media stories:

• "The Cobot Experience: AJung Moon & Resolving Human-Cobot Resource Conflicts," by Emmet Cole, Robotiq Blog
• "Robots Can Be A Force for Good," CBC News, May 21, 2018
• "Should We Fear the Robots?" Georgia Straight, May 9, 2018
• "Best Practices in Designing Effective Road Maps for Robotic Innovation," Robohub, Jan. 22, 2018
• "A newcomer’s guide to #ICRA2022: A primer," April 27, 2022
• "A newcomer’s guide to #ICRA2022: Tutorials," May 2, 2022