www.servomagazine.com/index.php?/magazine/article/june2013_ThenNow
of photographs and cartoons that
have poked fun at that critical scene
in the movie when the onboard
computer (HAL) malfunctioned and
would not allow the remaining live
crewmember (Dave) back into the
spacecraft.
Could HAL have been taken to
court and be convicted of killing
four people and trying to kill a
fifth? The way the movie ended,
who knows. However, it makes one
wonder about the many legal
consequences of the use of robots.
“Humans are tool builders,”
wrote Green. “We’re seemingly hard-wired to fashion objects that do jobs
for us or make life better or easier, or
both. Some of these tools — the ones
we call machines — have been
absolutely necessary in building and
maintaining our civilizations, our
modern way of life, and the ability to
plan for our future.”
“Our relationship with our
machines — however beneficial and
salubrious — is many times an uneasy
and often contentious one, especially
so since the Industrial Revolution.
Railroads are wonderful until a
locomotive slips its track. After the
wreckage is hauled away — the injured
and dead, as well — another of
humankind’s great inventions takes
over: Law.”
“The rules we all use to interact
with each other and the system by
which we can seek to be made whole
when we are wronged, intervene to
try to understand what took place and
to assess liability, arrive at a judgment,
and then determine punishment and
reward, if any.”
In my opinion, Tom and Emmet
stated the legal side of new
technology extremely well in these
opening sentences of their article.
FIGURE 1. “Open the pod bay door,” from
2001: a Space Odyssey.
FIGURE 2. Sonny (from the film,
I, Robot) being interrogated in a
police station.
their products. Private citizens are
angry at local, regional, and our
national government about the
dangers (as well as the potential
personal rights and privacy invasions)
that may be created by drones.
Autonomous, self-driving robots
are welcomed by some and feared by
others as being potentially lethal on
our country’s highways. Of course,
lawyers are waiting in the wings for
the many suits that they assume
(hope!) will be filed against robot
manufacturers. I will address these
legal implications a bit later.
detractors. When horseless carriages
first appeared, people were appalled
at the noisy things that smelled of gas,
scared everyone’s horses, and put
many animal feed suppliers out of
business. Even today’s movies play up
mistrust in robots, such as with Sonny
in I, Robot. Figure 2 is a scene from
the film when Sonny was being
interrogated as a murder suspect and
kept insisting he was innocent (even
though, in actuality, he wasn’t).
There are independent groups
that enjoy stirring up malcontent
about any new technology, and robots
seem to be in their crosshairs now.
Military versions are viewed as
autonomous killers preying upon
unsuspecting citizens, whereas the
civilian drones are considered airborne
government spies.
I’ve heard people say things like
“It’s bad enough these things are
above us, spying on our every activity,
but now they can carry missiles so the
government can take out any person
they choose — whether guilty or
innocent.” I feel comments such as
these serve no useful purpose other
than to stir up discontent. However,
I believe we need more trustworthy
people in today’s media, not just to
report the truth about the robotics
field, but for all aspects of life.
Robots Above Us
Robotics Industries
that Could be at Risk
Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles
I wrote a bit about UAVs in last
month’s column, and showed an
image of (supposedly) anti-drone/
stealth wear that can hide us from
those ever-seeing evil robots
above us. I’ve heard people
moan, “These new fangled
flying killer spies will bring us
down to the police state level
of North Korea.” It seems that
new technology always has its
Drones have been around and in
the news for years now. It seems that
very few of the positive features and
uses of these UAVs have been praised.
Police departments — large and small
— have begun to use smaller
quadcopters with a video camera to
perform surveillance on crime,
accident, and fire scenes.
FIGURE 3. Nord Atlantic Police UAV.
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