Robot law - forging a new legal discipline

(Nanowerk News) What happens to privacy when drones are deployed by police? what place do agbots (agricultural robots) have in ensuring food security? Whither the legal profession now that robots are performing legal tasks overseas?
Professor Matthew Rimmer
Professor Matthew Rimmer
Robots are part of everyday lives – they are used in hospitals for intricate surgery, in the environment to monitor species, and on the battlefield, but the legal system is struggling to keep up with regulation of robotics, says QUT Intellectual Property and Innovation Professor Mathew Rimmer.

QUT will host the first ever multi-disciplinary symposium on the legal, ethical and public policy challenges posed by robotics tomorrow, Friday October 7 in P Block of Gardens Point campus.

Professor Rimmer said forum participants from law, philosophy, ethics, public policy, and robotics would take an urgently needed comprehensive look at robotics and the law as part of the emerging effort to forge a new discipline of robot law and policy.
“Robotics is automating our everyday lives and the legal system is not prepared to cope with the complex issues that are arising,” he said.
The symposium will focus on regulation of robots across a variety of context and issues including:
  • – Drones
  • – Employment
  • – Privacy
  • – Policing
  • – Agriculture
  • – Medicine
  • – Environment
  • – Military
  • – Intellectual property
  • – Robot rationality and behaviour
  • The Regulating Robots Symposium: Law, Ethics and Public Policy symposium will be held October 7 from 8.30am in Room 419 Level 4 P Block of QUT Gardens Point.
    Source: Queensland University of Technology