IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2018 - 78

between humans and robots, the midlevel covers amending existing laws incompatible with advanced robotics.
The footing updates current safety regulations and programming ethics as a viable framework for robots, to
avoid damage caused by human-robot coexistence.
In 2016, the EU Parliament wrote the following in a
policy document: "Moreover, accepting that a machine
can be a conscious being would oblige humankind to
respect a robot's basic rights" [20]. This EU document
takes an interesting turn in describing how extended
autonomy of robots makes them either owners or users.
Accordingly, this creates an issue regarding liability,
making current legislation in the area insufficient, calling for new rules on the possibility of holding the autonomous "machine" partly or fully responsible for its own
acts. Therefore, the issue of legal status for the robot
becomes an issue [20]. This is a relatively limited view
on the legal aspects of autonomous mechanical beings.
This EU document does however approach the very
core of this issue based on current legal categories,
such as natural person or juridical person, goods, and
animals. It postulates the possibility of the need for a
new legal entity category with its own specific features
and implications, leading to a specific cluster of rights
and obligations related to autonomous robots [20].
Unfortunately, the document does arbitrarily dismiss the
whole issue with the following statement: "When considering civil law in robotics, we should disregard the idea
of autonomous robots having a legal personality, for the
idea is as unhelpful as it is inappropriate" [20].
Unfortunately, while bringing up several highly relevant and hot topics around RAiLE, it generally reflects a
rather Luddite [36] approach to the need for legal solutions. It seems to us that the responses given are rooted,
to a large extent, in a Western-world-culture-based human
fear of robots taking over the world [20]. Despite the
somewhat odd refusal to acknowledge the need for legal
change due to potential RAiLE in the EU policy document, an EU Parliamentary press release in January
2017 asked the EU Commission to create a legislative
proposal for a framework covering current and future
robotics related issues [37].

First Step for Global Legal Nomenclature
This research article is a first step towards establishing an
international and globally consistent legal nomenclature.
Ethical dilemmas based on emotional responses to
RAiLE affecting future laws are outside the scope of this
article. Practical consequences for legislators depend on
the model chosen. For the South Korean model, the existing laws may be "tweaked" to incorporate RAiLE. If the EU
model is applied there is need to create entirely new laws.
With this article, we want to initiate and stimulate a
serious debate about the future of human-R AiLE

interaction, with a focus on the legal context, for possible
future relationships between the involved entities. In
order to emphasize impacts, we have intentionally put
this initial research into two key areas of our daily lives -
the workplace and our homes. At a later stage, we plan to
expand our research into other legal clusters as they are
identified as being relevant. We have also intentionally
left out areas of legislation that we currently do not see
as directly applicable to the RAiLE itself, for instance
ethic rules and/or regulations for the engineers designing
and creating the new legal entities.
There are other legal aspects that will surface for future
legislation due to different roles that a RAiLE may take on
in the future, for instance in the area of military applications for autonomous RAiLE units. These legal aspects
should, to ensure legal certainty, be based on coherent
legal definitions and scenarios, envisioned and established in advance of the legislation being finalized, so as to
make the immersive societal transition into the next phase
of global Human-RAiLE interaction as smooth as possible.
So, what does this mean for the RAiLE as a legal entity
with its own legal personality? First, it is really nothing
new - laws have and will continue to change and adapt
to new circumstances. Second, it is established here that
current and future robots, using more and more sophisticated AI systems for decision-making, enables them to
learn and function in an autonomous fashion within a
socially interactive environment. Third, rights and obligations under the law work on the assumption that the legal
entity is competent to make necessary decisions within
the boundaries of the law. These three points taken
together point to the RAiLE becoming a legal entity with
its own legal personality. It being just a question of time
and it will force changes to the legal system.

Author Information
Morgan M. Broman is Adjunct Research Fellow at the Law
Futures Centre, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD,
Australia.
Pamela Finckenberg-Broman is a Ph.D. candidate at
the Law School of Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD,
Australia.

References

[1] R. Kurzweil, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend
Biology. New York, NY: Viking, 2005.
[2] J.L. Bower and C.M. Christensen, "Disruptive technologies:
Catching the wave," Harvard Business Rev., vol. 73, no. 1, p. 43-53,
Jan.- Feb. 1995.
[3] K. Dautenhahn, "Human-robot interaction," in The Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction, 2nd ed, Aarhus: Interaction
Design Foundation, 2013.
[4] J. Alenljung and B. Lindblom, "Socially embodied human-robot
interaction: Addressing human emotions with theories of embodied cognition," in Handbook of Research on Synthesizing Human
Emotion in Intelligent Systems and Robotics. Barcelona, Spain:
IGI Global, 2015, pp. 169-190.

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

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MARCH 2018

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