Is it ethical to work on general-purpose robots given the risk of cyberhacking?

A LessWrong discussion raises an ethics question about general-purpose robots — machines capable of quickly learning new physical tasks on the job. The concern: if millions were deployed widely and then hacked, attackers could weaponize them for authoritarian control, programming robots to arm themselves and suppress populations. The post notes that while AI safety circles discuss autonomous weapons, there's been little attention to cybersecurity risks in broader robotics development. The author asks: Should this be a serious concern for robotics researchers, and has the AI safety community overlooked this risk pathway?

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