Self-Defense Against Robots and Drones

Robots can pose-or can appear to pose-a threat to life, property, and privacy. May a landowner legally shoot down a trespassing drone? Can she hold a trespassing autonomous car as security against damage done or further torts? Is the fear that a drone may be operated by a paparazzo or Peeping Tom sufficient grounds to disable or interfere with it? How hard may you shove if the office robot rolls over your foot? This Article addresses all those issues and one more. what rules and standards we could put into place to make the resolution of those questions easier and fairer to all concerned The default common-law legal rules governing each of these perceived threats are somewhat different, although reasonableness always plays an important role in defining legal rights and options. In certain cases-drone overflights, autonomous cars-national,s tate, and even local regulations may trump the common law. Because it is in most cases obvious that humans can use force to protect themselves against actual physical attack, this Article concentrates on the more interesting cases of (1) robot (and especially drone) trespass and (2) responses to perceived threats other than physical attack by robots-notably the risk that the robot (or drone) may be spying-perceptions which may not always be justified, but which sometimes may nonetheless be considered reasonable in law

Robophobia

Robots-machines, algorithms, artificial intelligence-play an increasingly important role in society, often supplementing or even replacing human judgment. Scholars have rightly become concerned with the fairness, accuracy, and humanity of these systems. Indeed, anxiety about machine bias is at a fever pitch. While these concerns are important, they nearly all run in one direction: we worry about robot bias against humans; we rarely worry about human bias against robots. This is a mistake. Not because robots deserve, in some deontological sense, to be treated fairly-although that may be true-but because our bias against nonhuman deciders is bad for us. For example, it would be a mistake to reject self-driving cars merely because they cause a single fatal accident. Yet all too often this is what we do. We tolerate enormous risk from our fellow humans but almost none from machines. A substantial literature-almost entirely ignored by legal scholars concerned with algorithmic bias-suggests that we routinely prefer worse-performing humans over better-performing robots. We do this on our roads, in our courthouses, in our military, and in our hospitals. Our bias against robots is costly, and it will only get more so as robots become more capable. This Article catalogs the many different forms of antirobot bias and suggests some reforms to curtail the harmful effects of that bias. The Article\u27s descriptive contribution is to develop a taxonomy of robophobia. Its normative contribution is to offer some reasons to be less biased against robots. The stakes could hardly be higher. We are entering an age when one of the most important policy questions will be how and where to deploy machine decision-makers

On Controllability of Artificial Intelligence

Invention of artificial general intelligence is predicted to cause a shift in the trajectory of human civilization. In order to reap the benefits and avoid pitfalls of such powerful technology it is important to be able to control it. However, possibility of controlling artificial general intelligence and its more advanced version, superintelligence, has not been formally established. In this paper, we present arguments as well as supporting evidence from multiple domains indicating that advanced AI can’t be fully controlled. Consequences of uncontrollability of AI are discussed with respect to future of humanity and research on AI, and AI safety and security. This paper can serve as a comprehensive reference for the topic of uncontrollability

The Almost People: A framework proposal for the balancing of legal interests in the age of social robots.

Robots, which were seen as gimmicks in science fiction stories until not so long ago, have already crossed into reality. Thanks to the ever-growing autonomy of robots and ever-expanding variety of roles assigned to them, they are becoming more integrated into the ordinary course of everyday life. With the advent of social robots that can engage human beings on personal levels, for the first time, non-human entities are emerging as social interaction partners. In that regard, from the legal perspective, it is no longer possible to treat them as mere tools. The autonomy of robots is expected to have significant impacts on various interests recognised by the legal principles that underlie existing legal instruments. However, almost none of the existing legal instruments were developed in consideration of the implications of robots' emerging roles as independent social actors. On explaining the inadequacy of existing legal instruments, I outline the prospect of a paradigm shift in the law's approach to human-robot social interactions. A comparative analysis of German, Italian, and Irish legal systems -selected to represent the EU's diverse legal families- demonstrates that robots' autonomous behaviours and emerging roles as social interaction partners are likely to undermine the legal principles expressed most notably in the domains of private law (contract law and tort law) and criminal law. The conceptual deconstruction of existing legal instruments offered by these domains reveals that legal systems overlook the characteristics of social robots that set them apart from other artefacts, namely, their relative autonomy and social agency. These distinctive characteristics allow robots to perform unpredictable behaviours and to prompt human beings they interact with to anthropomorphise them. Overlooking these characteristics diminishes the adequacy of existing legal instruments Ultimately, I conclude that the shortcomings of contemporary legal systems can be overcome by creating a new, unified legal framework that would enable the law to respond to the legal implications of robot autonomy and the phenomenon of robot anthropomorphism

Amazon's Alexa critical genealogy through the imagery of women and machine in science fiction cinema

In order to better understand the phenomenon of genderization of consumer technologies, such as digital voice assistants (DVAs), present in the market today, this dissertation examines the possible sociocultural intersections between gender and technology present in the imaginary of science fiction cinema. To do so, a Foucauldian discourse analysis was conducted on ten feature films in this artistic genre, which is very dear to feminism, especially as of its third wave, drawing an intertextual parallel with the responses programmed into some of the most popular DVAs available today, such as Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. This dissertation challenges the argument that the genderization of technology is a phenomenon as recent as these new technologies and that it can be explained only from a user experience point of view. With this objetive in mind, we trace a genealogy of Alexa based on the ideas proposed by Michel Foucault, in an attempt to expose the power games behind these gender constructions inside and outside of cinema. In this sense, we identified and examined three main categories of discourse analysis that are present and repeated not only in the filmic sample, but also in the DVAs used daily by millions of consumers around the world. The study points to the need to overcome gender barriers in not only technical, but also sociocultural, access to technologies in general.Com o objetivo de melhor compreender o fenômeno de genderização de tecnologias de consumo presentes hoje no mercado, como as digital voice assistants (DVAs), esta dissertação examina as possíveis interseções socioculturais entre gênero e tecnologia presentes no imaginário do cinema de ficção científica. Para isso, foi realizada uma análise de discurso foucauldiana em dez filmes de longa metragem deste gênero artístico, que é muito caro ao feminismo especialmente a partir da sua terceira onda, estabelecendo um paralelo intertextual a partir das respostas programadas em algumas das mais populares DVAs disponíveis atualmente, como Alexa, da Amazon, e Siri, da Apple. Esta dissertação desafia o argumento de que a genderização da tecnologia é um fenômeno tão recente quanto essas novas tecnologias e que pode ser explicado apenas do ponto de vista da experiência do usuário. Para este efeito, traça-se uma genealogia da Alexa com base nas ideias propostas por Michel Foucault, expondo os jogos de poder por detrás dessas construções de gênero dentro e fora do cinema. Nesse sentido, foram identificadas e examinadas três categorias principais de análise de discurso que estão presentes e se repetem não apenas na amostra fílmica, mas também nas DVAs utilizadas diariamente por milhões de consumidores ao redor do mundo. O estudo aponta para a necessidade de superação das barreiras de gênero no acesso não apenas técnico, mas também sociocultural, às tecnologias de forma geral