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Robot Harm

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Hal9000:
I was just wondering, what or who is responsible for if a robot hurts or kills someone?

The obvious idea would be the owner of the robot..........but what if there was a huge development team? Would there be a search into who was responsible for the PART of the robot that was responsible?

But then, what about if it was human error by the person who gets hurt? How do they judge?

Does anyone know any good sites about this?

JesseWelling:
See this is where the line of people law versus AI law starts to blur.

If some mentally slow (read: talking on his cell phone while crossing the street) jumps in front of a robotic bus, who is to blame?
What if it was a human driver? Should it be any different?

Bottom line.....Even though robotics and controll systems is the profession I'm going to go into, I'm not going to think about that until some one tells me to. Instead I'm going to concentrate on writing good, solid, correct code.

my $.02

Sam_Charette:
It's really impossible to say, because the sheer amount of possible situations where this might occur are so different, that each one would require a ruling specific to it.

Take a battlebot for instance.  It could be perfectly safe, as long as it's being operated by a good operator.  In that case, it might be the operator.  If there's a section of the robot that is built poorly, and hurts someone, it'd likely be the designer/builder.  If some idiot decided to lick the chain saw as it was running, well then it would be the victim's fault.

There can not be any sort of general rule to cover all situations.  It's impossible.  Even for a robot that is 100% autonomous, the situation itself would govern who is at fault.

Admin:
short answer:
lawyers dont argue ethics . . .

long answer:
it doesnt really matter if robots are even involved . . .

for example, is it McDonalds fault for not telling people coffee is hot, or the lady who spilled it on herself that won millions in the lawsuit? :P

if someone gets hurt from a malfunctional product, they sue the company that makes the product. the company then decides to fire the specific employee(s) that screwed up. if someone broke the law, all who broke it pay the price determined by law. Enron, for example.

sony can recall batteries that catch on fire . . . but can you recall raging AI robots with lasers for eyes? :P

an extra $.01 added.

JesseWelling:
You can do a recall with this:


that's my *ahem* $.50

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