Recent headlines declaring “Robot Kills Man in Germany” are examples of growing news coverage about the impact of robots on society. This is the subject of a new law review article by a University of Washington faculty member.
Twenty years in, the law is finally starting to get used to the Internet. Now it is imperative, says Ryan Calo, assistant professor in the UW School of Law, that the law figure out how to deal effectively with the rise of robotics and artificial intelligence.
“Technology has not stood still. The same private institutions that developed the Internet, from the armed forces to search engines, have initiated a significant shift toward robotics and artificial intelligence,” writes Calo in “Robotics and the Lessons of Cyberlaw.” His article, published in June in the California Law Review, is among the first to examine what the introduction of robotics and artificial intelligence means for law and policy.
Robotics, Calo adds, is shaping up to be the next transformative technology of our time: “Courts that struggled for the proper metaphor to apply to the Internet will struggle anew with robotics.”
Though mention of robotics and artificial intelligence can prompt images of unstoppable Terminators and mutinous HAL 9000 computers, Calo dismisses such drama early on. “And yet,” he adds, “the widespread distribution of robotics in society will, like the Internet, create deep social, cultural, economic and of course legal tensions” long before any such sci-fi-style future.
To Calo, robotics is essentially different than the Internet and so will raise different legal issues.
“Robotics combines, for the first time, the promiscuity of data with the capacity to do physical harm,” Calo writes. “Robotic systems accomplish tasks in ways that cannot be anticipated in advance, and robots increasingly blur the line between person and instrument.”
But does that mean robotics and artificial intelligence need different treatment under the law, or different laws entirely, than the technologies of which they are made, such as computers?
In the paper and a 2014 article in Slate on the same subject, Calo relates an anecdote about Chicago judge and law professor Frank Easterbrook, who in 1996 famously likened research in Internet law to studying “the law of the horse.” Easterbrook felt any single approach is doomed to “be shallow and to miss unifying principles.” Calo quotes science fiction writer Cory Doctorow, who in a response to Calo wrote in The Guardian that he could not think of a legal principle applicable to robots that would not also be usefully applied to the computer, and vice versa.
“I disagreed with Easterbrook then and I disagree with Doctorow now,” Calo writes. “Robotics has a different set of essential qualities than the Internet, which animate a new set of legal puzzles.”
Read more: Robotics and the law: When software can harm you
The Latest on: Robotics and the law
[google_news title=”” keyword=”Robotics and the law” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: Robotics and the law
- Around Town: Duquesne Kline School of Law, United Way Celebrate to Elevate and PVCA Awards Dinner (photos)on April 19, 2024 at 12:54 pm
On April 17, the Pittsburgh Venture Capital Association hosted its annual Awards Dinner at the Fairmont Hotel downtown. Bill Flanagan of "Our Region's Business" served as the emcee for the evening, ...
- The day robots were bornon April 18, 2024 at 3:52 pm
From a symbol of a hi-tech future to a household appliance, the image of the robot has undergone huge changes since its name was first used in a Czech play in 1921 ...
- MOJO Robotics take to the arena | FOX61 Student Newson April 12, 2024 at 4:00 am
The Robotics team, MOJO, consists of students from two high schools in Milford - Joseph A. Foran and Jonathan Law. Annually, their team robot competes in a series of matches led by First Robotics.
- Paterson police want to buy tactical robots for certain calls. Here's what they would doon April 11, 2024 at 6:48 am
The 'throwbots' give law enforcement responders critical information and more in the event of a hostage situation.
- SOLM221 AI, Robotics and the Lawon December 21, 2023 at 7:31 am
and robots as independent agents in the legal arena and its legal ramifications. This module will provide students with an understanding of the legal issues arising from the development of autonomous ...
- A.I. makers must create, observe new laws of roboticson June 29, 2023 at 10:53 am
These fictitious laws were reminiscent of the U.S. Constitution, open to constant re-interpretation: new questions arose on what is harm and whether sentient robots should be condemned to ...
- San Francisco considers allowing law enforcement robots to use lethal forceon November 28, 2022 at 1:25 pm
Should robots working alongside law enforcement be used to deploy deadly force? The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is weighing that question this week as they consider a policy proposal that ...
- What are Issac Asimov's three laws of robotics? Are they purely ficticious or is there scientific credence to them?on November 19, 2022 at 11:03 pm
Smart bombs and cruise missiles are kinds of robots which violate the first and third laws. Computers and machines run by computers do what they are programmed to do and, of course, they will hurt ...
- Who Is Responsible When Robots Kill?on February 11, 2019 at 8:56 am
I explain what business leaders need to know about the law. Technological revolutions — like cryptocurrencies and robots — tend to outpace the law. Cryptocurrencies are being hacked and stolen.
- Even (Some) Law Firms Think Robots Are The Next Big Thingon January 30, 2014 at 10:14 pm
The venue? WilmerHale, an international law firm. Why are law firms so interested in robots? The very short answer is money. Law firms are businesses. They can see the ascendance of this ...
via Bing News