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Who's Responsible When Your Semi-Autonomous Shopping Bot Purchases Drugs Online?
Nerval's Lobster writes Who's responsible when a bot breaks the law? A collective of Swiss artists faced that very question when they coded the Random Darknet Shopper, an online shopping bot, to purchase random items from a marketplace located on the Deep Web, an area of the World Wide Web not indexed by search engines. While many of the 16,000 items for sale on this marketplace are legal, quite a few are not; and when the bot used its $100-per-week-in-Bitcoin to purchase a handful of illegal pills and a fake Hungarian passport, the artists found themselves in one of those conundrums unique to the 21st century: Is one liable when a bunch of semi-autonomous code goes off and does something bad? In a short piece in The Guardian, the artists seemed prepared to face the legal consequences of their software's actions, but nothing had happened yet—even though the gallery displaying the items is reportedly next door to a police station. In addition to the drugs and passport, the bot ordered a box set of The Lord of the Rings, a Louis Vuitton handbag, a couple of cartons of Chesterfield Blue cigarettes, sneakers, knockoff jeans, and much more.
The creator of a device that breaks the law because the creator either negligently or intentionally set up the device to break the law is responsible, as that creator set the conditions for the operation of the device.
The creators knew both that they were designing something to make its own decisions without programming any real concept of legality in the process, and setting it to operate in an environment which is known to have served to facilitate criminal activity.
The degree of responsibility is up for grabs, and that's why things like limited liability corporations exist, to attempt to shield the owners from being personally liable, but the act itself is still criminal. One can even debate the line between engineering and art, since the bot is an artificial construct that actively does something in the greater world, rather than a passive display or something contained to its own small environment.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
You...
If YOUR bot buys something, it does so on your behalf so YOU are responsible. The question here really is: can your lack of understanding of what the bot was going to do provide a defense if your program buys something illegal. I'm guessing the answer to THAT question is "NO" but this is a question for the courts to decide.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Who's responsible when I point my car, traveling at speed, at a bunch of pedestrians and jump out? There's just no way to know.
Another human that you create is not a "semi-autonomous bot". It is a self-aware person, and is held responsible for its own actions.
Can you prove that your teenage kid is sentient and fully autonomous? :) And at what age does this happen?
Actually that an interesting question
The entire premise here is flawed. The code didn't just accidentally do something bad.
That would be like me randomly shooting a gun and if a bullet happens to kill someone I say "I didn't do it deliberately so it's OK".
If it bought meth or Nigerian Herbal Fake Viagra and let you use it, then yes. (Bad robot!)
If it bought cannabis or some other safe but politically incorrect substance, then it might have violated the Second Law, depending on whether Swiss law commands robots and other non-humans not to buy them, or only humans. (Also, if it bought cannabis and let you drive under the influence, that'd be a First Law problem, but any robot smart enough to buy dope online is smart enough to emulate an Uber app and call for a ride.)
Under US law, property that commits crimes or torts (such as a car used to buy drugs or a dog that bites people) is subject to civil or criminal forfeiture, so your dope-buying robot might be subject to arrest, and might end up as a slave of the US government, buying dope for them instead of you, but I assume Swiss law isn't quite that silly.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
hmmm, I just walk into the store and purchase my stuff
I can't imagine spending my life in a place so far into the 3rd world that they sell fake Hungarian passports in shops. I would totally send in the tele-presence robot for that one.
(to both parent comment and grandparent comment)
They may think that it's legal to set-up a Rube Goldberg Machine scenario to attempt to put the final actions at arms' length, but the fact that they set up all conditions along the way should mean that they cannot make such an arms' length claim.
As far as intent to commit an illegal act, it looks like they did intend to commit an illegal act, and are trying to somehow get that illegal act interpreted as art or speech or whatever Swiss law has as an equivalent. I don't think that their attempt will fly.
As to keeping whatever contraband was ordered, normally for contraband to be used in some fashion when it's otherwise illega, it's cleared in-advance with a prosecuting authority and a court, giving the entity using the contraband some form of limited immunity for possessing the contraband. That we're having this discussion indicates that this was not done. When I was a kid, I was taught to never buy something illegal (like drugs) from someone with the intention of presenting those drugs to the authorities, because it was still illegal for me to be in possession of those drugs and illegal to purchase those drugs, and I wouldn't have had any prior immunity to protect me. Even if my intentions were completely above-board I'd still get into trouble. That's where they are now, at a minimum, assuming as the party that set this software bot up is held responsible for its actions.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.