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Issues and challenges about the legal status of AI robots - Focusing on Bryson's theory of legal personality -

  • Public Land Law Review
  • Abbr : KPLLR
  • 2019, 87(), pp.791-813
  • Publisher : Korean Public Land Law Association
  • Research Area : Social Science > Law
  • Received : July 31, 2019
  • Accepted : August 20, 2019
  • Published : August 27, 2019

KIM MINBAE 1

1인하대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Should AI robots be given legal personality? Should we consider it as an intelligent artifact? There is controversy over such issues. In other words, it is desirable to give the intelligent robot the legal status of new concepts such as electronic personhood and electronic personality according to the development of artificial intelligence. That is the point of contention. Scholars have increasingly discussed the legal status(es) of robots and artificial intelligence systems over the past three decades; however, the 2017 resolution of the EU parliament on the ‘electronic personhood’ of AI robots has reignited and even made current debate ideological. The European Commission has to establish certain statuses, such as electronic human beings, that are responsible for the damages that autonomous advanced robots can generate in the long term, and that AI robots make autonomous decisions, And encouraged them to apply electronic personality when they interacted independently. However, the proposal from the EU Parliament has triggered many criticisms and objections. In April 2018, 156 people, including artificial intelligence and robots experts, lawyers and entrepreneurs from 14 European countries, sent an open letter to the European Commission in early May and opposed the move to give the robot a legal status. In this open letter, it has been pointed out that giving a legal status of electronic character to autonomous, unpredictable and self-learning robots is problematic. They argued that they should be discarded in both technical, normative, legal and ethical perspectives. However, the EU Commission went further and published the Ethics Checklist for Artificial Intelligence on June 26, 2019. The European Commission on Artificial Intelligence has announced that it is preparing ethical guidelines for reliable artificial intelligence based on the policy recommendations of the High-Level Expert Group of Artificial Intelligence . However, the terms electronic human and electronic personality have the intention of giving a similar legal status to intelligent artefacts that humans already enjoy. However, a comprehensive discussion of the legal status of robots at different levels and the question of when the legal concept of electronic humanity will be introduced is needed. Examining AI and robots in the category of legal personality is surely an attempt to prepare for the future of technology change. But speaking is easy and difficult to do. In this paper, I’d like to consider whether AI and robot among the intelligent artifacts can be the subjects with legal personality. In particular, this paper examines the logic of Bryson, who takes a positive stance on the legal status of robots. In this paper, I’d like to examine the validity and limitations of Bryson's arguments and the points to be supplemented. Do we have to give electronic or human personality to robots? If so, what is the key argument? When is it time to give legal personality? I want to focus on this in my paper.

Citation status

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