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Europe's Robots To Become 'Electronic Persons' Under Draft Plan (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Yahoo News: Under the European Union's new draft plan, Europe's growing army of robot workers could be classed as "electronic persons," with their owners liable to paying social security for them. Robots are only becoming more prevalent in the workplace. They're already taking on tasks such as personal care or surgery, and their population is only expected to rise as their abilities are expanded with the increased development of new technologies. A draft European Parliament motion suggests that their growing intelligence, pervasiveness and autonomy requires rethinking everything from taxation to legal liability. The draft motion called on the European Commission to consider "that at least the most sophisticated autonomous robots could be established as having the status of electronic persons with specific rights and obligations." It also suggested the creation of a register for smart autonomous robots, which would link each one to funds established to cover its legal liabilities. Patrick Schwarzkopf, managing director of the VDMA's robotic and automation department, said: "That we would create a legal framework with electronic persons -- that's something that could happen in 50 years but not in 10 years. We think it would be very bureaucratic and would stunt the development of robotics," he told reporters. The report added that the robotics and artificial intelligence may result in a large part of the work now done by humans being taken over by robots, raising concerns about the future of employment and the viability of social security systems. The draft motion also said organizations should have to declare savings they made in social security contributions by using robotics instead of people, for tax purposes.
If anyone cares to read the actual draft document...
As you might expect, the summary doesn't completely reflect what this document says. Basically, it a long kitchen sink document that says the EU should try to figure out how best to get ahead of the curve in legal framework for this inevitable AI revolution. The document contains a big laundry list of stuff like...
- making sure AIs are all "registered" (that's a bit ominous)
- allowing you to "sue" an AI (force owners to carry insurance and producers to contribute to a compensation fund in case owners don't carry enough insurance)
- require access to source code (presumably for forensic purposes)
- code of conduct/ethics for the AI researcher and developers (including the AI "teachers")
- make sure AIs are developed to respect European values of dignity freedom and justice (including privacy and data sharing issues)
- provide basic income to support all the people that are going to become unemployed by AIs (a commonly recurring EU parliament theme, not a scheme to give social security to robots)