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Who's Liable For Decisions AI and Robotics Make? (betanews.com)
An anonymous reader shares a BetaNews article: Reuters news agency reported on February 16 that "European lawmakers called [...] for EU-wide legislation to regulate the rise of robots, including an ethical framework for their development and deployment and the establishment of liability for the actions of robots including self-driving cars." The question of determining "liability" for decision making achieved by robots or artificial intelligence is an interesting and important subject as the implementation of this technology increases in industry, and starts to more directly impact our day to day lives. Indeed, as application of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning technology grows, we are likely to witness how it changes the nature of work, businesses, industries and society. And yet, although it has the power to disrupt and drive greater efficiencies, AI has its obstacles: the issue of "who is liable when something goes awry" being one of them. Like many protagonists in industry, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are trying to tackle this liability question. Many of them are calling for new laws on artificial intelligence and robotics to address the legal and insurance liability issues. They also want researchers to adopt some common ethical standards in order to "respect human dignity."
I don't think anyone has ever considered this issue. Ever.
and I've been calling for professional licensing and liability for software engineers for at least 30 years. That should follow the approach for other Professional Engineers, including the use of 'engineering practices' as a defense.
The software community has done an appallingly shitty job with software reliability. (Exhibit 1: CERT database of software vulnerabilities.) It's way past time they get held accountable. And yeah, this will slow things down and require people do things right the first time, and it will put a serious dent in the management approach to "throw the cheapest bodies at the software problem, and damn the bugs!" Product liability needs to include both corporate and individual liability.
Because most AI and some robots rely on techniques that create emergent behaviour (i.e. not directly programmed therefore unverifiable) such as neural nets and swarm theory.
Robotics have been with us for more than half a century.
Programmers don't decide this, system engineers do.
Source: I'm a robotics engineer.
civil vs criminal as well. Where things are different.
And in a criminal case they can't hide under an NDA or EULA
Which programmer is liable when many are working on the firmware and programs running the vehicle/robot?
How much of a code change would make me equally liable as the other programmers?
What if the code was perfect (worked as designed) but the hardware it was running on or the sensors attached to it reported incorrect information?
What if the programmers fixed a bug, that could cause an accident, but the manufacturer failed to sell vehicles whose code contained that fix?
What if the programmers fixed a bug, that could cause an accident, but the owner of the vehicle/robot/toaster failed to apply the firmware update?
What if the code on the vehicle/robot was altered by the owner? Is the owner now 100% responsible? Is there shared responsibility between the manufacturer’s programmers and the owner?
What if the programmers made the robot to kill humans, because that was the job they were given by military but then the robot was put in the wrong setting and killed the wrong humans?
What if a programmer believes a bug must be fixed but his or her employer won't allow them to fix that bug?
With a union and a real trade school system.
A lot of CS professors have been in the ivory tower for way to long and have very little real work place know how on the workings of IT / codeing.
The people who designed and tested the AI.
What is so novel about that?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Primary liability for a robot's actions are with the owner... Case closed....
Now, the owner may have a liability claim with the maintainer, installer and/or manufacturer should the robot not function as designed, but that's another case.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The elected politician or judge or senior executive who approved the use of the category of technology in the category of application in which the problem occurred is who ought to be responsible.
Software, specially self-learning AI software, is too complex and unpredictable (in details of operation in every case).
Careful programming and testing cannot cover the range of possibilities, because input data and system state are too (combinatorially) complex.
It's the senior decision maker who ways the risks and benefits and approves or allows, who is responsible.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
What if Eastwing sold hammers with cracks (they do make nice hammers BTW) that lead to heads flying off and smacking another person? You as the framer are benefiting from the hammer (so that you're not pounding it in with your fist). Are you be liable for their defective hammer?
"decision maker who weighs the risks"
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
... for the actions of their pets. The owner.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There's medication available for your condition.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
At least, that's what the battalions of lawyers will argue.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The employee can often be held personally accountable by the company (for certain types of things) even if the company is generally held accountable by outside parties.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Every permutation of possibilities for say an automated 3 ton car driving at speed in the massive complexity of the unpredictable open world without ever having any accidents, simply cannot even be anticpated let alone exhaustively planned-for/tested, therefore cannot realistically ever be the fault of Engineers.
The only sane approach is to require full cover insurance for each robot in the wild. Let the market itself determine the actual usage of robots based on the trade-offs between total costs (including probably very expensive cover-everything insurance) vs potential savings/perceived benefits.
it makes no sense to argue exactly who will buy the insurace (i.e. manufacturer, supplier or end-user) since its cost will ultimately be borne by the end user anyway.
The people who designed and tested the AI.
What is so novel about that?
Welcome to earth, but I'm sorry to report Microsoft will invade your planet RSN.
You obviously didn't read your EULA covering your new AI robot. You don't own anything and whatever goes bad, the badness is NOT the fault of "the people who designed and tested the AI". When you signed the lease or whatever to use the monster, you agreed they are all innocent.
Liability is such a quaint old idea. You wouldn't want to bankrupt Microsoft by holding the company liable for all the damages caused by their little mistakes. After all, no one is perfect. Of course, these days it isn't just Microsoft, but EVERY humongous and "successful" company has to protect its "maximized shareholder value" from the pesky peasants who might get injured or killed by those little mistakes.
No one is perfect, and inhuman corporations are the least perfect of all.
What are they liable for? Who's liable?
Absolutely nuttin' and absolutely no one.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Isaac Asimov, for improperly formulating the three laws of robotics. If he'd gotten them right, none of this would be necessary.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Who is responsible for buggy software sending spam to the world?
My buggy doesn't send anything to anybody. But then, it doesn't have software; just a horse.
But you don't control what the AI does.
There is a perfect example of this in theaters right now. In the movie Logan, there's highways in Oklahoma that have essentially robot semi trailers operating on them all the time. Pretty cool actually. But there's a scene where some horses run loose, and the robot semis almost hit them.
Now, lets say the robots are programmed to avoid large animals in the road, but by doing so one swerves into traffic, or brakes suddenly, causing another accident in which someone is killed. Who is to blame? Who is liable?
>> So? I don't think any code I've created has been formally proven to be correct
You obviously haven't worked in avionics or written autopilots then. I have and this is exactly what you do. BTW Formal proof (at last the type good enough for the FAA) also has little or nothing to do with writing in assembly.
The programmer may simply build the software 'machine'. Who may be responsible is actually the group who trains the AI machine with data. It's all a bunch of statistical classifiers. An accident is when a statistical classifier mis-classifies a pedestrian and runs it over. In this case, the liability is probably going to be with the manufacturer. Not with any individuals or developers employed by the manufacturer.
A more interesting case is a collision between two moving self driving vehicles. In this case, one or both vehicles are probably going to have far more data available than any human collision ever had. Cameras, lidar, radar and other sensors. It would probably have to go to court. The fault may be found to be one or both of the manufacturers.
What if neither manufacturer of a two car collision is negligent? This is not like an amusement park ride where the maintenance folks didn't replace a tie bar in a roller coaster because management PHBs said that it cannot be replaced if it has not failed. Maybe both car makers exercised due care in the development of their self crashing cars. Maybe it is nothing more than a terrible tragedy with nobody to blame. Is that a possible outcome? What if a sinkhole ate your car while you were driving down the road? What if lightning struck you?
I have to throw in the obligatory: what if the government removes burdensome safety regulations on poor struggling self driving car manufacturers?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
What if there is no negligence? What if the manufacturers of two self crashing cars both exercised due care in their development? Even so, a crash is inevitable sooner or later.
Accidents can be due to the same things that could cause a human to have an accident. Sensors are degraded. (dirty windshield wiper, etc) Road conditions are degraded and couldn't stop before the stop sign. What about a simple mechanical failure that is nobody's fault? (Even in a human driven car, my brakes didn't work!)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Avoidance: I built my own car from scratch with nothing but hand tools! It took me 20 years!
Respecting risks: I built a robotic assembly line that produces 50 cars a day. I must observe, and be aware that this is a very dangerous piece of tech, and be sure my employees understand that they are paid handsomely to do the same while working near it.
Other: My assembly line riveted my hands to my widget! It's not my fault, I never *REALLY* accepted the risks of automation....
Avoidance: I'll never trust a self driving car! Ever!
Respecting risks: I better keep an eye on road just in case....
Other: My husband was minding his own business, taking his morning nap on the way to work....
Avoidance: Moving stairs?! Witchcraft! I'll take the "real" stairs!
Respecting risks: I'll just be sure my shoes are tied correctly, and maybe keep an eye on those scary bits on the ends......
Other: My little girl had such beautiful long hair before she decided to nap on the escalator....
Respecting risks: The system goes online August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug......
Avoidance: August 29, 1997, came and went. Nothing much happened. Michael Jackson turned 40. There was no Judgment Day.....
Other: Die slow, MF......
Respecting risks: Sir, the policing capacity of a cybernetic officer far outweighs the risks that he or she may uncover the far reaching conspiracy our company may or may not be involved in...
Avoidance: I'm sorry Mrs. Murphy, we did everything we could. Your husband died a hero...
Other: PLEASE PUT DOWN YOUR WEAPON. YOU HAVE 20 SECONDS TO COMPLY.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Why on earth would The Who be liable? Oh, wait, it's a question, not a statement.
Do you have ESP?
All the robots that I've seen run a procedural program, usually written in am, c, c++ and some proprietary scripting language. All the 'training' is embedded in carefully derived gain factors developed in matlab using pole placement and optimal control theory. Many instances, this is realized in part by hardware (op amps and comparators).
Human and dignity are not words that go well together. Human's are on the nasty side and tend to ruin all that surrounds them. A person has a natural right to expect that any device follows designs and safety rules that industry leaders use to keep people safe. no system will ever be perfect and anything meaningful will have built in error potential just like a brand new and expensive tire can explode and cause the death of numerous people. But when we allow insurance companies and other third party wallet vampires to get into any affair it tends to create more problems than it solves.
and the corporate executives that runs the company and the stock holders
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Same question as who's liable for decision pets make. When your dog escape from the house and makes a carnage in a nearby kindergarten, you are liable. If you feel you're not cut to control things you own so that it doesn't get out of control, don't buy a dog nor a robot.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
Like volkswagon?
they follow an exact set of instructions and it will follow these exact instructions every time it comes to the same situation.
compared with perception and semantic understanding of general external environment.
I'm talking about functional self-awareness here (i,e, behaviour indicating self-awareness) not the consciousness hard-problem (qualia).
A "feeling" of self-awareness is not necessary for functional behaviour due self awareness. Whether a feeling would emerge is a separate question, not that important because we can't prove that we ourselves have it. We only assume that other people are not zombies because it's a simpler supposition to assume they are the same'ish in qualia perception to us. That's an assumption, probably correct, but entirely unprovable.
Functional self-awareness behaviour is behaviour of the system caused by information-processing of the relationship of indformation/symbols standing for
- one's physical self (body/parts)
- one's ideas (information-processing explorations of stored information representing the world and abstractions of it)
- one's sequences of focusses of attention
to information/symbols representing things out in the world.
In other words it is second-order (or higher-order) reasoning (aka meta reasoning).
Again, nothing specially harder about implementation of that in computers compared to implementation of learners/reasoners solely about the aspects of the external-to-self world.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
A lot of people are anticipating that "drivers" of automated cars will still require liability insurance, which means the user is liable. I don't think it is right, but a lot of people think it is.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Yet if you bought a hammer that was guaranteed to "automatically do all the hammering required to build a house automatically" and you followed all the correct procedures as a user of the hammer but instead when you turned it on it flew off the wall and killed your child, you would likely be suing the maker of said hammer. No hand tool is an apt comparison because by their definition they are not automated so therefore there is always a human to be blamed.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
When the manufacturer released the product for sale, they would have a certain specification for safe use. If the equipment is not configured correctly by the company owning it, then it is the companies fault. If there was a safety measure not used by the woman than it is the woman's fault. Otherwise it is the manufacturers fault. Since automated cars will be a matter of getting in and selecting a destination, there is nothing for the user to be liable for and it would always fall to the manufacturer.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I see no difference between designing calipers for brakes and putting them in a car or designing AI and putting it in a car. If the brakes are installed correctly but the calipers don't stop the car, the driver is not held liable. Likewise with AI. The manufacturer has sold the car with it, barring any kind of outside force the manufacturer had no control over, the manufacturer should be responsible for what happens. If 2 billion lines of code is too advanced for you to certify as safe, then don't certify it and don't put it in a car. It's that simple.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
This answer is simple. By certifying the AI that they have put in the car, the manufacturer has certified that they have considered any possible such situation and is prepared to take responsibility for what happens. If they can't do that (and I'm not sure anyone working on automated cars can say they can) then the technology and/or people are simply not ready for this. Personally I think it is the current level of technology that is the problem. Corporations are rushing it out the gate based on technology we have now in the quest for profits.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Only in the case of K9
Selling a machine with an inherent ability to harm a person while being used properly by the owner is negligent in itself.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
As far as I know, EU parliament has no power here. This will be one more non-binding resolution.
But at least, I assume it is better than nothing that some people work on that problem.
It doesn't matter at all. The developer is still responsible and liable for the usage of these unpredictable and unverifiable algorithms in his products. You cannot hide behind the unpredictability of an algorithm if you decided to use it in a critical part of a product that needs predictability to keep someone safe. You decided in first place to play with the life of someone else.
Achille Talon
Hop!
if you as the driver decide to "check out" and let the AI do the driving for you, and then you get into a car crash, you should be liable because you were not paying attention or controlling your vehicle.
Except we are talking about cars that have no controls for the person inside. All the other examples you gave offer more control to the user of said product than a fully automated car will.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I read one proposal which suggested that liability insurance might be bundled with autonomous vehicles as a marketing tool. Or perhaps an optional feature like leather seats & a sun roof. That seems like a really good idea to me. It would certainly answer this question about who is responsible for an accident. As a selling point, it would make expensive autonomous vehicles extremely attractive to drivers considered to be "high risk" by insurance companies. For someone with multiple accidents & a DUI, insurance could be as much as $5,000 per year. Even more for a young driver. Putting $400/month into a car payment instead of an insurance payment would obviously allow a person to finance a much more expensive car.
If psychological harm counts as harm, then it would be negligent to sell a machine running Windows 10.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Yes, good point.
CowboyNeal
Why has no one thought of the obvious and correct answer?
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
"As horrible as each of these stories is, there is nothing that shows that Mr. Cadden did something that the government can link to the death of that person."
There are many example of cases where a corporation kills people, but, magically, no one person is found guilty of murder, when it was clearly murder.
Oh, I guess it's nobody, because it was done in the context of a business!
We have to solve that problem first. And the question doesn't change just because you add "with robots" or "with technology".
Pretty sure you're an AI trolling us.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?