Robots of Legal

Calo (2015) argues that we are already faced with the choice of metaphors for robots, as drones have already been likened to “airplanes”, resulting in severe restrictions on use. In addition, regulators in the United States have already compared surgical robots to laparoscopic surgery, which is minimally invasive, speeding up the approval process. In addition to social robots, assistance and rehabilitation robotics also stands out. Pearl, the Nursebot, is a prototype of a personal mobile robotic assistant capable of recognizing speech, accompanying patients and communicating via a touch screen. The robot nurse developed at Carnegie Mellon University is being prepared to remind people to take their medication and help them move around nursing homes. Rehabilitation robots were originally developed to support the movement of recovering patients. Assistive robotics has always had a wide reach, including rehabilitation robots, wheelchair robots, companion robots, and manipulator arms. We can also talk about socially assisted robotics, a term used to describe artifacts whose central purpose is a form of social interaction rather than physical contact. Robots are already being used to help stroke patients with their exercises, support the elderly, and care for and educate children and adolescents, especially under certain conditions, as has been advocated in autism situations. This document aims to examine the proposal to create a legal (electronic) personality for robots with artificial intelligence on the basis of the European Parliament resolution containing recommendations on civil law and robotics.

To this end, we highlight the various risks and problems that exist with this type of initiative, especially given the current trend to expand legal subjectivity in different jurisdictions. In addition to anthropomorphic rhetoric, we can observe the prevalence of a pragmatic line that seeks to be guided primarily by the business model, but without taking into account the problems in the process of incorporation of companies and the particular function of the term legal person in the grammar of law. In a first paper in Science, Duda and Shortliffe (reference Duda and Shortliffe 1983) argued that the difference between a computerized instrument and a robot is intentional. Footnote 2 A computer-aided instrument – such as a computer program – is designed to support human choice, while a robot becomes a knowledge-based autonomous learning system whose operation competes, replaces and surpasses that of human experts (Duda and Shortliffe, reference Duda and Shortliffe 1983: 261-268). Similar arguments about the dichotomy between mechanization and automation have been advanced in systems theory research. Among other things, Rahmatian argued (reference Rahmatian 1990) that automation “involves the use of machines as a substitute for human labor,” while “mechanization […] can take place without real automation” (Rahmatian, Referenz Rahmatian 1990: 69). While computer-assisted instruments are purely labor-saving devices (i.e. an extension of the human body when performing work, most often purely physical activities), robots are also mind-saving devices (i.e. an extension not only of the human body, but also of the mind – that is, physical and mental activities). Robots are designed to have their own cognitive abilities, including “decision-making (selection, selection, etc.).” (Rahmatian, reference Rahmatian 1990:69). Other scientists in systems theory research have made essentially the same arguments. For example, Ackoff (reference Ackoff1974) defined automated technologies as machines that perform an activity for humans as they would have done themselves, or perhaps even more efficiently (Ackoff, reference Ackoff1974:17).

Thanks to the dynamic nature of the decision-making algorithm that controls their behavior, robots take into account new information gathered during their operation, dynamically adapt their way of working, and learn from their own past actions and mistakes (Bertolini et al., reference Bertolini, Salvini, Pagliai, Morachioli, Acerbi, Cavallo, Turchetti and Dario2016; Giuffrida, reference Giuffrida2019; Giuffrida et al., reference Giuffrida, Lederer and Vermeys2017). Robotics cannot be considered a novelty. In industry, with a focus on automotive engineering, robotics represents a technique already integrated into production, mainly in relation to the execution of routine tasks. As Pagallo (2018) points out, more than 50 years ago, “robots materialized as a reprogrammable machine that operates semi-automatically or fully automatically in manufacturing processes and other industrial tasks” (Pagallo, 2018). While robotics should not be confused with AI, it is undeniable that these fields are increasingly intertwined today, mainly due to improved probabilistic methods, increasing availability of huge amounts of data, and increasing computing power. We must also forget the recent transformation of places and spaces into environments more receptive to information technology, as is the case with images of smart cities. “First of all, there are many state laws regarding robots, drones, driverless cars, robot delivery, there are federal rules that govern some of these technologies. The industry itself has just grown year after year. It is a multi-billion dollar global industry. And many of the questions we had predicted over the years have arisen.

In the lesson of Rodotà (2015), the problem lies in the perspective of the idea of an abstract subject influencing any process of attribution to a legal entity. This construction allowed the legal discourse to formally liberate the person and artificially detach him from his economic, social and natural conditions. In response to the contempt for the concrete, we notice the attempt to reconnect the person in the material sense with his context, with the reinvention of the person, who is now socio-ecologically located and embodied. Legal personality of robots, corporations, idols and chimpanzees: a quest for legitimacy After figuring out how to identify citations, we accidentally stumbled upon a methodology to automate one of the most demanding and time-consuming aspects of legal practice: legal research. Since bots are impervious to threats of legal liability, how can we regulate this new class of potential perpetrators? The need for a theory to better understand robot-related crimes is urgent, as robots are already capable of driving cars and trains, delivering packages, flying planes, negotiating actions, and performing operations with minimal human intervention or supervision. Engineers and futurists predict that more revolutionary changes are coming. How the law addresses these new technologies will impact their adoption rates and future investments in research and development. In extreme cases, the choice of liability regime could even completely undo technological progress. How the law responds to robot crimes is therefore a critically important issue. Robot law is an emerging specialty of law and robot lawyers focus on robot or robotics laws. A legal framework is needed to deal with this new type of person. First we had natural persons (or persons), then we have legal entities (such as companies or trusts).

Now we have a new type of person – the robot (or human robot). Robot law today is the equivalent of what corporate law was when it began hundreds of years ago. An exciting legal era. However, adapting to the religious freedom of a for-profit company comes up against an important point: thousands of women employed by Hobby Lobby may not share the same beliefs as the company`s major shareholders. In view of this situation, did the Tribunal decide to protect the legal position of the controlling shareholders of the company to the detriment of the private autonomy of the workers? For Justice Ginsburg, who tipped the scales at the time of the trial, there was no doubt: the decision to extend religious freedom to a for-profit organization created a serious imbalance within the company by placing the belief of the controllers above the protection of the rights of women working in the company in question. With new warehouse robots, Amazon wants to find a way out of its security problems Many people (like Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Professor Stephen Hawking) have expressed concern that intelligent robots could pose a threat to humans. Creating an electronic personality can cause the same problems to be repeated. Instead of recognizing the peculiarities of the different fields of application of robots, these different relationships are brought together in a single legal model based solely on the figure of an abstract subject. This is a common mistake when the law tries to address new technologies. Instead of their ownership, artifacts are actually determined by their specific fate.

Therefore, they do not contain abstract generalizations and unit reductions, regardless of their various uses. Is it possible to compare the problems caused by the use of robotics in medicine with the use of drones for military and security purposes? Similarly, the use of social robots among vulnerable people raises specific ethical questions that cannot be compared to the use of robotics for the transport of goods and people. In the verbalized legal world, the term “legal person” refers to an autonomous centre of legal relations. The attribution of a legal person is based on the assumption that all legal relationships take place between natural and legal persons, such as companies.