FUTURE OF ROBOTICS ON LEGAL BASIS
Today, robots are used for various basic tasks such as delivering food sorting products, or making sales. However, even the most accomplished robots do not have social skills or any personal traits. Thus, the biggest innovation in robotics will be gaining personalities. Nowadays, Google is working on a project called personality robots. These robots will develop personality when they interact with other humans. The experience gained will be stored in a cloud which will help robots to develop their characters much faster. Several years after launch, Google’s personality robots will act like one of us.
Another example is from MIT researchers. They sort out 3 levels of robots by their abilities. Level 0 robots do not have any physical or social interaction with other robots or humans. Level 1 robots have physical interaction with others. To illlustrate, a cleaning robot has knowledge about physical environment surrounding. Level 2 robots have both social and physical interacting skills. With social skills, these robots will be able to help the elderlys and disabled people. Moreover, robots will be in interaction with each other which will help them to complete tasks easily for environment and human life. Let’s assume a robot is trying to water and trim the plants. Another robot which is connected to same cloud will help the robot and the task will be completed easily. However, these Level 2 robots are new to our decade and humanity only have them in prototypes. Therefore, there are almost no regulations regarding robotics. In a legal perspective, there will be several legal issues with robots.
Firstly, robots will be mostly connected to a system cloud through AI. This way they will gather information and use them when circumstances are necessary. On the other hand, this will emerge the issue about usage of private data. Robots will store the information they obtain but it won’t be possible to take consent from everyone.
Secondly, robots with personality will be able to act like humans. This means that they must be liable for their actions. However, today there are only 2 personalities in law. Real person is referring to humans who are born alive. Legal person is the personality given to corporates who are not alive but have liabilities for others. Robots fit in neither of these definitions. Some professors in doctrine argues that they should have the legal personality just like corporates. However, corporates are not physical beings and they do not commit crimes or harm other people physically. Robots on the other hand, will be able to harm others or commit crimes when they fully develop.
Final one is the issue of liability of actions. As mentioned before, robots owning social skills will act like other humans. This situation brings the idea of a robot harming other people or properties. For human, punishment of a freedom is sufficient way of punishing because humans have limited lifespans. Life of a robot is not limited therefore the idea of limiting the freedom of a robot is inadequate. So, there are questions about whether robots or their creators and developers should be liable about their actions. Moreover, if they are liable for actions what is the right penalty for them? EU is taking steps for further regulations and making research about legal issues in robotics. Yet it is not important today, once robots advance, there will be numerous issues about them. Governments should be very precise about these regulations; otherwise, there will be a lot of infringements of people’s rights.
Resources:
www.mckinsey.com
https://www.bimplus.co.uk/robotics-legal-issues/
https://robohub.org/the-legal-issues-of-robotics/
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-institutional-economics/article/liability-for-robots-i-legal-challenges/089EA1B996A5E8974643F8F1BDCD86BB
