'The Rise of Robots and the Law of Humans' (Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 27/2017) by Horst Eidenmueller is
characterised as an
ttempt to answer fundamental questions raised by the rise of robots and the emergence of ‘robot law’. The main theses developed in this article are the following: (i) robot regulation must be robot- and context-specific. This requires a profound understanding of the micro- and macro-effects of ‘robot behaviour’ in specific areas. (ii) (Refined) existing legal categories are capable of being sensibly applied to and regulating robots. (iii) Robot law is shaped by the ‘deep normative structure’ of a society. (iv) If that structure is utilitarian, smart robots should, in the not too distant future, be treated like humans. That means that they should be accorded legal personality, have the power to acquire and hold property and to conclude contracts. (v) The case against treating robots like humans rests on epistemological and ontological arguments. These relate to whether machines can think (they cannot) and what it means to be human. I develop these theses primarily in the context of self-driving cars – robots on the road with a huge potential to revolutionize our daily lives and commerce.
'Products Liability and the Internet of (Insecure) Things: Should Manufacturers Be Liable for Damage Caused by Hacked Devices?' by Alan Butler in
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform (forthcoming)
comments
Despite the fact that discussions of liability for defective software go back more than forty years, there is no clear consensus on what theory governs liability for damage caused by ‘onnected devices’ (or the ‘Internet of Things’). However, the proliferation of IoT devices may be the catalyst for a new field of ‘connected devices’ products liability law, which could provide a good model for determining liability for several reasons. First, attacks on IoT devices can and have caused significant damage to property and are highly foreseeable given the widely acknowledged insecurity of connected devices and numerous high-profile attacks. Second, IoT devices are, in many cases, capable of being updated and secured remotely by the manufacturer, and patching well-known security flaws could significantly reduce the risk of future attacks. And third, holding manufacturers liable for downstream harms caused by their insecure devices is well aligned with the purposes of products liability law—to minimize harm by encouraging manufacturers (as a least-cost-avoider) to invest in security measures.
