Then
and
NOW
Robots and the Law
by Tom Carroll
Back in April of 1984, I was
one of a dozen or so
speakers at the International
Personal Robot Congress in
Albuquerque, NM. Isaac
Asimov delivered the
keynote address via a video
TV link from New York —
much to the disappointment
of those who had hoped to
meet the famous author in
person. Joseph Engelberger
was another key speaker. My
topic was about robot
hardware, and I believe most
of the attendees managed to
stay awake during my
presentation.
78 SERVO 06.2013
Towards the end of the three-day conference and exposition, all of
the personal robots from exhibitors
and hobbyists were lined up outside
the front of the exhibition hall for a
group photo. As I was standing behind
the photographer, an elderly woman
came up to me and said, rather
angrily, “What are you all doing here,
trying to make mechanical men? Only
God can make people. You should be
ashamed of yourselves. Do you plan to
have these things take over the
world?” I was a bit taken back by her
statements. This was in the days
before walking bipedal humanoids
that we have today, so none of the
robots really resembled a human. I
doubt that she was a participant in
the conference or had actually been
inside to view the exhibits. Her
‘agenda’ to scold all of us left me
unsettled. Her precise wording escapes
me — as does my actual response to
her — but the feeling of her
admonishment to me remains vivid to
this day.
Just what did she and the rest of
the world think that robot builders
were trying to accomplish? Did she
feel that we were intent on building
robots to overthrow Mankind? The
movies of the Terminator series and I,
Robot were many years in the future.
Suddenly, I felt that all of the
attendees had somehow been
transformed from people who enjoyed
studying and building robots into a
group of mad scientists intent on
destroying the Earth with our evil
creations.
These comments were made
almost 30 years ago, and you could
certainly sense the anger and distrust
that this woman expressed about
robots. Here we are in the 21st
century and one would think that with
many decades of exposure to robots,
the public would be used to them in
all aspects of our life. Not so.
Marvin Rosenblum, an attorney
who specialized in high tech start-up
companies back in the early ‘80s was
a speaker at the 1984 IPRC. Even in
those early days of robot use, the legal
implications of robots were clearly in
the minds of early developers.
The use of robots has created so
many legal issues these days that
major robot manufacturers must
employ a legal team to carefully
examine the use and subsequent
liabilities of a company’s robotic
products.
Robots and the Law
Last September, Tom Green,
Editor in Chief of Robotics Business
Review, and author Emmet Cole wrote
an in-depth article entitled Robots and
the Law. Tom began the article with
these words: “Humankind’s new
tool: Who gets the blame when
one screws up?”
Another quote that Tom made
from the film, 2001: a Space Odyssey
—“Open the pod bay door, HAL.” “I’m
sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that”
— has been the brunt of many a joke
since the movie debuted in 1968.
Figure 1 shows one of hundreds
