08 Feb The Legal Personality of Robotics.

At the “62nd Congress of the International Association of Lawyers” in Porto, Professor Antonios Kouroutakis made a presentation at the joint working session of the transport, insurance and robotics commissions. Professor Kouroutakis discussed why the legal personality of robotics should be a subject matter for insurance law. He remarked that the presence of robotics as active members of various industries has been ever increasing and that “Machines” have already exceeded human performance on a number of task and will reach and exceed human performance on more and more task.

Until today, robots are classified based on their application and based on kinematics (or locomotion). However, the advancement of technology nowadays permits us to classify robots based on their autonomy. Professor Kouroutakis argued that the legal personality of robots, must be in accordance with the autonomy of robots while he stressed that robots with a “theory of Mind” that can form representations about the world, and about other agents or entities in the world [deep learning technology in progress] shall be treated differently from robots purely reactive, with a transient database (like the self driving cars).
This distinction would have a significant impact on the regulatory framework challenging the existing liability laws and insurance legal framework.

The presentations that followed examined specific challenges posed by robots such as autonomous vessels, trains, cars, and trucks.

By: Professor Antonios Kouroutakis