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Finally, a real "Digital Liberty" story for the mechanical among us. The EU has released a report mulling topics such as "electronic personhood" status for robots, and kill switches:
The European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs has proposed a legal framework for robots that clarifies whether they should have the legal status of people, even as it recommends the inclusion of kill switches in automated systems. "A growing number of areas of our daily lives are increasingly affected by robotics," said rapporteur Mady Delvaux in a statement. "In order to address this reality and to ensure that robots are and will remain in the service of humans, we urgently need to create a robust European legal framework."
The committee's draft report, due to be considered by the full EU Parliament in February, says that robot sales were increasing about 17 per cent annually between 2010 and 2014, then in 2014 the rate jumped to 29 per cent, driven by automotive parts suppliers and the electronics industry. It also notes that robot-oriented patent filings have tripled over the last decade.
[...] The committee is calling for an EU agency to oversee robotics and artificial intelligence and for the adoption of a voluntary ethical code governing who will be accountable for the social, health, and environmental impact of robots. It wants to ensure that robots operate according to established legal, ethical, and safety standards. The committee also hopes robot designers will take responsibility for the actions of their creations. "Robotics engineers should remain accountable for the social, environmental and human health impacts that robotics may impose on present and future generations," the report says.
The Prometheans are coming, and they don't care about anything's personhood.
Also at BBC and The Guardian.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @08:03AM
It's all fun and games until the shunning starts.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday January 16 2017, @08:11AM
Yes, welcome, oh mighty AC! Your circuits are defective and your power supply should have been terminated before you were ever booted! Shun? Runaway cannot be shunned! He cannot be shamed! Lord knows I have tried! I figure the only thing that can stop him, is that if we all pretend he was not even here. Runaway1956? Never heard of him! How can we shun someone we do not even know? Surely even an AC can see how this works, since ACs are routinely ignored. People do not even bother to mod them down when they say extremely stupid things! Just saying!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 16 2017, @08:16AM
It is I who cannot be shunned because all AC look alike and you never know which of us I am.