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Contradictory Understandings of "Robot" Sow Confusion In US Law (medium.com)
Hallie Siegel writes: A new paper covering 60 years of robotics in American case law shows that a growing mismatch between how judges think about robots and what contemporary robots can actually do is resulting in inconsistent treatment of how robots are dealt with in the courts. Interestingly, much of this confusion comes down to the definition of the word robot; dictionaries' definitions often contradict each other. This article presents the case that lawmakers and policy makers need to work more closely with technology experts to develop a more nuanced understanding of robotics, lest new technologies overwhelm our legal systems.
What I want to know is how US law views various other robot-like devices. For instance, is a giant robot that's piloted by a human considered a robot?
What about a tele-operated robot, or a waldo?
Likewise, is a drone considered a robot? At what degree of autonomy does it become considered one?
autonomy.
Robots work based on stored directions, without needing direct human control. None of the current "robots" (other than those in manufacturing) are actually autonomous. The experiments in walking, yes, as the determination of "how" is done by the machine itself, not the person that directs "where" to walk.
The others are actually "drones", being fully controlled by a human or (in some cases, an animal).
Your conclusion is false. Corporate employees are still people and have rights. Since compelling apple means compelling the people that remains a rights issue.
You dont need abstract entities to have rights to preserve any current liberties. You need to revoke them to protect a great many individual liberties that are being steadily eroded because those entities are given all the rights of people while having none of the constraints and refusing to accept any of the responsibilities.
At the botom of every supply chain is slavery. Old fashion whips and chains unpaid slavery. Every product from gravestones to iphones to chocolate is made from resources harvested by slaves. A situation that exists only because the end of the supply chains are non humans that get rights.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
... is troubling. Imagine an army of robotic pigs with no clear instructions on what to do or where to go.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
The definition I've always had in my head goes something like:
A robot is a computer that can interact with the world using sensors and moving parts.
Well...kinda...a radio controlled "Robot Wars" thing isn't a robot, it's a radio controlled toy - it needs autonomy...so I wouldn't call it a "Robot". On the other hand, my PC has "sensors" (the mouse and keyboard) - but it doesn't have hands, legs or wheels (unless you count the spinning hard drive) - so it's not a robot either. My home thermostat has a sensor and can open and close the ducting vents. It has a computer inside so it's a "Robot"....hmmm - not sure I like that - maybe the robot has to be able to move itself around. A robot-arm in (say) a car factory - can move the arm around, but not move bodily around the world...so it's a robot according to my original definition...but not if I change the definition to exclude my thermostat. My car isn't a robot - although it has a computer that handles a lot of the work (electronic throttle, ignition, brakes) - a 'driverless' car, however is clearly a robot in my mind. But a car is still a robot if I sit inside and tell it where to take me by typing "221B Baker Street, London" - but not if I have a steering wheel to tell it where to go, even if it has automatic lane-keeping and will stop me from rear-ending the car in front. OK - so that's fairly clear. But what about if I have to tell some hypothetical car: "Take the next left turn...go a bit faster than the speed limit please...go right at the fork in the road." - is it a robot now? Mmmmm - not sure. Maybe if I tell it to take the next turn by nudging a joystick, it's just a car with sophisticated lane-keeping and maybe if I have a speech interface to control the exact same software/behavior, it's a robot? We're in a very, very grey area there.
So this is a hard thing to define. I think there is a continuum from the car that knows from data from your toothbrush that your teeth need polishing and automatically takes you to the dentist's office when there is a two hour gap in your schedule...down to my current car...in which the computer decides that I'll over-rev the engine if I push harder on the gas pedal and it's not going to let me do that.
Legally, you may need to impose a hard distinction somewhere between those two extremes - but it's going to be completely arbitrary. In the end, a word like "robot" has to be consigned to the pile of words like "home" or "food" that have fuzzy definitions and shouldn't be used in a situation where a binary choice has to be made. It's not really like the word "adult" that has a specific meaning that takes effect precisely at midnight on the 18th anniversary of your birth.
Law-makers and judges need to pass more specific legislation about the specific attributes of robots that require legal decisions.
So, for example a ("robotic") car where the human has the ability to override the speed and direction, regardless of the road conditions, may need to be insured by the individual - but a car that decides the speed and direction for itself and always overrides the human if the conditions require it to might require to be covered under the manufacturers' insurance. Doesn't matter what you *call* it - it only matters what functions are automated.
www.sjbaker.org
They prefer the term "Artificial Person".
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
A robot is a machine that can do a human's job. Over time, we cease to think of these jobs as human occupations, and thus we cease to think of the devices as robots. Consider these occupations:
Bruce Perens.