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How To Change U.S. Laws To Promote Robotics
An anonymous reader writes "A law professor says the U.S. could fall behind in the robotics race if we don't change product liability law. A new op-ed over at Mashable expands upon this: Yet for all its momentum, robotics is at a crossroads. The industry faces a choice — one that you see again and again with transformative technologies. Will this technology essentially be closed, or will it be open? ... What does it mean for robotics to be closed? Resembling any contemporary appliance, they are designed to perform a set task. They run proprietary software and are no more amenable to casual tinkering than a dishwasher. Open robots are just the opposite. By definition, they invite contribution. It has no predetermined function, runs third-party or even open-source software, and can be physically altered and extended without compromising performance. Consumer robotics started off closed, which helps to explain why it has moved so slowly."
the primary purpose and largest market for robotics will be for weapons.
That or manufacturing. Some (most) robotic assembly plants aren't safe for humans already.
In either case, changing product liability laws is EXACTLY the wrong thing to do.
A "product" is not the place for hackers and experimenters. You can build anything you want in your basement or maker shed, but if you want to build a product for sale, you better have some strict testing and insurance.
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Agreed. But then again, it's not straightforward how to extend liability laws to Amazon delivery drones or driverless cars. I don't see that being permissive with these extensions would necessarily help robotics be more "open". That's a separate issue. But I do think that it would help pave the way for killer robot apps (not: killer robots) if legislators didn't prohibit their application from day one.
Heck I will even revise my comment
.Net components anyhow).
"Consumer robotics started off closed, which helps to explain why it has moved so slowly"
No, exactly the opposite. Open ROS is why robotics has moved so slowly. No profit, no motive. MS left the game a long time ago (and MS Robotics Studio was just incubator for other
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
AFAIK the US congress never passed the "Three Laws of Robotics" in the first place.
Maybe they should
And while we are talking about Asimov, maybe they should put some money into researching Thiotimoline
I just read the article. I'm not impressed.
First, the author is trying to make his case look good by framing the issue in terms of "open robots". The paper could equally well be titled "Let's Legalize Killer Robots!". What he wants to to is provide legal immunity for manufacturers against harm caused by their robots. His justification for this is a law Congress passed, at the urging of the pro-gun crowd, to immunize manufacturers against suits by people injured by their guns. Even that immunity is quite limited - if a criminal shoots you, you can't sue the manufacturer. But if your gun blows up when fired, you can.
Second, robotics is open now. You can buy lots of devices you can program. At the hobbyist level, there are companies like Lynxmotion. Most of the hobbyist robots tend to be on the wimpy side, but you can buy industrial robot arms if you want.
Third, the main reason consumer robotics hasn't taken off is because the devices don't work very well. None of the robotic vacuums are very good vacuum cleaners. Even the expensive Willow Robotics robot the article mentions isn't capable of doing very much. Progress is being made, but slowly.
I suspect this guy saw the DARPA robotics challenge video (probably the jazzed-up edited version for popular consumption, not the raw videos of painfully slow teleoperation) and started pontificating.
None of this is really what the article is about, though. The thesis is simply that manufacturers of open robotics platforms (which are out there right now) should not be legally responsible for what people do with those platforms. The argument is that making them liable will reduce the pace of innovation.
soylentnews.org
Technically, your programmable washing machine and spin-dryer are robots. Maybe even the toaster, oven and microwave. A sewing machine with downloadable patterns comes close. They do have moving parts, but all the dangerous bits are usually hidden away.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
the inevitable marriage between robotics and 3D printing will eliminate most jobs, and all that goes with it.
Too late. The neolithic agricultural revolution has already eliminated 99% of the jobs. Very, very few people are now employed as hunter-gatherers.
I don't know, it seems like this is a fairly complicated question, it might be worth at least formally clarifying some boundaries.
Lets say we have industrial robots designed specifically to be user-programmable, as I believe most of them are. If there is a defect in the hardware that causes an accident then the company making the hardware is at fault. If however it was a defect (or intentional nefariousness) in the user programming, then it is clearly the programmer who is at fault, not the hardware manufacturer.
In the case of autonomous robots, be they car/drone/cyborg/whatever, I think the same logic would reasonably apply - if you use the built-in control systems and they malfunction in a way that damages someone/thing then the manufacturer is at fault, but if the damage was reasonably traced to the orders it was following, then it's the person giving the orders that's at fault. Lots of grey area in there though - what if a flying drone is ordered into an area where the winds are too strong to operate safely , and it gets into a damaging collision? Should the company have been required to actively notice and avoid unsafe wind conditions? What if the wind is gusty and there was insufficient prior warning to have reasonably escaped the "danger zone"
Perhaps a special provision of liability transfer should be considered for autonomous systems, seeing how as with a sufficiently wide deployment accidents are inevitable, and the people best suited to make and improve the systems are not necessarily motivated to do so if they have to swallow the costs of the inevitable accidents. However, we could perhaps arrange for some liability transfer, where the systems are sold as fit for use in certain restricted conditions where the risks are reduced to acceptable levels, and the operator must accept at least partial liability to operate them in any other setting. An autonomous industrial robot may have a wonderful market in a controlled factory setting, but it may also have great uses operating in public. If the manufacturer is required to accept liability for the second scenario then it will likely take far longer before they're willing to release them for the first one. And if we outright ban the second scenario then we'll be depriving ourselves of the discovery of all sorts of potential for new usages.
Perhaps we could do something simple like require users to carry comprehensive liability insurance in order to operate an autonomous system outside of it's specified environment. Much as we do to allow the operation of most any other dangerous machinery in public. The usage of customized software, open source or otherwise, would no doubt have an impact on the insurance premiums, but companies would be free to stand by their product and offer such insurance themselves, at the price they believe is justified.
Of course enthusiast driven open projects would be hit hard - I imagine the premiums to operate potentially dangerous uncertified autonomous systems could be prohibitively high, but the only alternative I see would seem to be to allow enthusiasts to endanger the public without consequence.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
ut then again, it's not straightforward how to extend liability laws to Amazon delivery drones or driverless cars.
You don't have to "expand" the laws, they already apply.
You just have to prevent boneheads like those in TFA from limiting liability for things like Amazon's scheme.
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Nah. Just skip it. Sure it's a great product, but so what? If you need to invest 50 times your life savings on testing and insurance and lawyers and regulatory compliance, then why bother even trying?
If you haven't got the legs to get into the business, you haven't got the legs to stay in the business.
If you can't obtain financial backing then you probably don't have a worth while product in the first place.
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The dangerous bits of a sewing machine are not hidden away.
That's right, and yet with all this productivity and spare time, what do we do? Force both heads of the family to work to barely have the same standard of living my single income family had 30 years ago. So who benefits from the technology?
Automation has lead to joblessness and unemployment beyond anything the world has seen before. Get used to it, and figure out how to deal with it.
F.T.F.Y. We're going to have to decide which commodities are free to the commons (like air to breathe, water to drink, roads to travel on, restrooms to be sanitary in), and which need to be allocated based on some kind of merit (money) system. Things that can be provided by automated servant (robotically, or otherwise) are hopefully moving to the free to the commons list.
We are already servants to our machines. How much of your income is spent on your vehicle(s)? And, that building you live in, what percentage of it's construction cost is attributable to the machines that helped people to build it, and harvest/mine and transport the raw materials? Even more starkly, the food you eat, what percentage of its cost goes to the maintenance and upkeep of the machines that bring it to you vs. the farmer who maintains and operates those machines?
The space program of the 1960s still needed "drivers" in the vehicles, space exploration has (mostly) moved beyond that need.
The bulk of machines in the 20th century needed close supervision, operation, and maintenance, but "lights-out" fully automated factories were not unheard of. As we move forward, there is more and more automation, including automation of the supervision, operation, and maintenance of production machines.
I, for one, welcome unemployment if it means that the machines are finally taking care of themselves while supplying me with food, shelter, clothing and transportation - let's at least try to keep the entertainment out of the robots hands, shall we?
After much thought, I've concluded that robotics is a Faustian bargain. The best policy to their onset is to delay and obstruct them by any means necessary.
Yes, automation will make products and services more available. But in every case the cost will be the loss of a human skill and a job. This trend will (and must) continue until all human skills and jobs finally perish. Ultimately all human endeavors, not just life's difficulties like work but it's joys like art will be better done by a robot. This progression will be unstoppable.
In a vain attempt to keep up, man will have been upgrading ourselves cybernetically. In the end we will have no biology left -- we'll be 100% robot.
No thanks. It's time to get off this merry go round.
Heh. In all seriousness, one of the biggest issues we face is the mythology that someone else`s problem is just someone else`s problem, and how often other people`s problems become our own in subtle ways.
None of this is really what the article is about, though. The thesis is simply that manufacturers of open robotics platforms (which are out there right now) should not be legally responsible for what people do with those platforms. The argument is that making them liable will reduce the pace of innovation.
But again, this is a non-issue.
You buy a Chainsaw from direct from the manufacturer, and that manufacturer is in no way responsible when you murder someone and chop them up with the saw to dispose of the body. Anti-Gun people have been routinely rebuffed by the courts when trying to sue gun manufacturers because someone used their products to commit murder. Nobody holds an automaker responsible when someone intentionally uses their vehicles to commit crimes.
The law and the courts are already pretty good at affixing blame, and in spite of the deep pocket horror stories, these tactics of going after the up-stream manufacturer virtually never work in the real world.
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In the case of autonomous robots, be they car/drone/cyborg/whatever, I think the same logic would reasonably apply - if you use the built-in control systems and they malfunction in a way that damages someone/thing then the manufacturer is at fault, but if the damage was reasonably traced to the orders it was following, then it's the person giving the orders that's at fault.
These situations are already handled under current law.
If YOU use the build-in control systems, YOU are predominantly responsible. Its going to be up to YOU to prove the product was defective.
There needs to be NO changes in the law for this to exempt OEMs from responsibility. A bazillion car analogies suggest themselves, from sticking accelerators to faulty on-board computers. And if the on-board computers fail in specific circumstances that they were warranted to handle, the vehicle manufacturer can pursue a claim against the computer manufacturers.
There is no reason to build air-gaps in the law to protect upstream suppliers, because the burden of proof is well established in current law.
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... in a world where there is little need for human labor ...
This is zero sum thinking. That is not how real economies work. Here is a thought experiment: You run a factory making widgets, that employs 100 workers. Someone invents a tool that has negligible cost and doubles the output of each worker. What do you do?
Option A: Fire half your workers since they are no longer needed.
Option B: Realize that each worker is now generating twice as much revenue and far more profit, so you hire more workers and expand your factory.
Throughout history, in each new wave of automation, we have picked option B, growing the economy, expanding employment, and raising living standards. I see no reason to believe that robotics are fundamentally different than the invention of the plow, or assembly line.
I don't know, it seems like this is a fairly complicated question, it might be worth at least formally clarifying some boundaries.
Lets say we have industrial robots designed specifically to be user-programmable, as I believe most of them are. If there is a defect in the hardware that causes an accident then the company making the hardware is at fault. If however it was a defect (or intentional nefariousness) in the user programming, then it is clearly the programmer who is at fault, not the hardware manufacturer.
And the decision as to who was at fault will ultimately be made by a lay jury...
Why is there such concern of whether the robot is "closed" or "open" ?
Both the "closed" version of the robotic and the "open" version have their own ecological spheres - just like the one in the software field.
We have closed and proprietary software and we have open sourced software, and we have some that overlap both camps.
Each side has its own (sort of) evolutionary scheme, and each side has its own strength and weaknesses.
Why can't the robotic be the same ?
If someone decide to turn their robots into something like the dishwasher machine, hey, that's their choice, let them.
After all, this is a free world.
But if someone decide that they want their robots to gain more inputs / feedback / tune / addition from the userland, then they make their robots the "open" kind, so that their robots can "grow", "mutate", "evolve" into new fields that the original inventor couldn't even begin to fathom.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
As much as I agree that having both heads of the family to work sucks, we have a much better standard of living now than 30 years ago.
For example we now have:
Two or more cars per family
Clothes driers and dishwashers
Food processors, breadmakers & microwave ovens in addition to normal oven/cooktops
Reverse cycle air conditioners is multiple rooms of the house
Mobile communication & internet devices in everyone's pocket
Multiple TV's and computers thoughout the house
All of these things would have been considered luxuries 30 years ago and are now commonly affordable.