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LegalAIze: Tackling the Normative Challenges of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Through the Secondary Rules of Law

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New Technology, Big Data and the Law

Part of the book series: Perspectives in Law, Business and Innovation ((PLBI))

Abstract

A considerable number of studies have been devoted over the past years, to stress risks, threats and challenges brought on by the breath-taking advancements of technology in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics. The intent of this chapter is to address this set of risks, threats, and challenges, from a threefold legal perspective. First, the focus is on the aim of the law to govern the process of technological innovation, and the different ways or techniques to attain that aim. Second, attention is drawn to matters of legal responsibility, especially in the civilian sector, by taking into account methods of accident control that either cut back on the scale of the activity via, e.g., strict liability rules, or aim to prevent such activities through the precautionary principle. Third, the focus here is on the risk of legislation that may hinder research in AI and robotics. Since there are several applications that can provide services useful to the well-being of humans, the aim should be to prevent this threat of legislators making individuals think twice before using or producing AI and robots. The overall idea is to flesh out specific secondary legal rules that should allow us to understand what kind of primary legal rules we may need. More particularly, the creation of legally de-regulated, or special, zones for AI and robotics appears a smart way to overcome current deadlocks of the law and to further theoretical frameworks with which we should better appreciate the space of potential systems that avoid undesirable behavior.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Suffice it to mention work of Wooldridge and Jennings (1995), Franklin and Graesser (1997), Allen et al. (2000), and Floridi and Sanders (2004).

  2. 2.

    See UN (2005).

  3. 3.

    An overview in Pagallo (2013a, 2015a).

  4. 4.

    See Koops (2006).

  5. 5.

    See Reed (2012).

  6. 6.

    See Leenes and Lucivero (2016).

  7. 7.

    Check, among others, the work of Hildebrandt and Koops (2010), and Hildebrandt (2011).

  8. 8.

    See Pagallo and Durante (2016).

  9. 9.

    Jobs (2007), p. 3.

  10. 10.

    See, for example, Allen and Widdison (1996), Kerr (2001), Barfield (2005), Andrade et al. (2007), Sartor (2009), Pagallo (2013a).

  11. 11.

    Among advocates of techno-determinism, see Moravec (1999), Kurzweil (2005), or Kelly (2010).

  12. 12.

    More details in Pagallo (2013a), pp. 155 et seq.

  13. 13.

    Solum (1992), p. 1260.

  14. 14.

    Davis (2011), p. 171.

  15. 15.

    See Chopra and White (2011), especially Chap. 4.

  16. 16.

    This is of course the stance of, e.g., Posner (1988).

  17. 17.

    For the sake of conciseness, the analysis takes into account the primary rules of the US legal system. A comparison with further legal systems and their rules on liability and burdens of proof is developed in Pagallo (2013a).

  18. 18.

    See, for example, Pagallo (2011, 2012).

  19. 19.

    In Pagallo (2013a), p. 59.

  20. 20.

    Suffice it to mention Melzer (2008), Wagner (2014), Bergen and Rothenberg (2015), Crawford (2016), Ohlin (2016).

  21. 21.

    Davis (2011), p. 171.

  22. 22.

    See UN (2005).

  23. 23.

    This is the opinion of Karnow (1996), Lerouge (2000), or Weitzenboeck (2001).

  24. 24.

    The thesis is developed in Bellia (2001).

  25. 25.

    This is the claim of Sartor (2009).

  26. 26.

    See Pagallo (2013a), pp. 103 et seq. Drawing on ancient Roman law, the overall idea of the peculium is, on the one hand, that individuals that employ AAs to do business, transactions or contracts, could claim a liability limited to the value of their AAs portfolio (plus, eventually, forms of compulsory insurance). On the other hand, the AAs’ peculium would guarantee their human counterparties, or other AAs, that obligations would really be met.

  27. 27.

    EU Commission (2013), p. 34.

  28. 28.

    See Pagallo (2016).

  29. 29.

    See the introduction of Garfinkel and Spafford (1997).

  30. 30.

    The paradox is stressed by Lin et al. (2007).

  31. 31.

    The reference is, of course, Popper (1935/2002).

  32. 32.

    For the distinction between primary and secondary legal rules, see Hart (1961). In this context, we can leave aside such secondary rules, as the rules of recognition and of adjudication, so as to focus on the rules of change.

  33. 33.

    Further details in Pagallo (2013b).

  34. 34.

    Weng et al. (2015), p. 850.

  35. 35.

    Weng et al. (2015), p. 850.

  36. 36.

    N. 14 of the doc. 2015/2103(INL).

  37. 37.

    See, e.g., Calo (2014).

  38. 38.

    Brundage and Bryson (2016), p. 6.

  39. 39.

    See, e.g., Hart (1961), and Dworkin (1985).

  40. 40.

    For a useful introduction, see Shapiro (2007).

  41. 41.

    In addition to Dworkin (1985), see Dworkin (1986).

  42. 42.

    Hart (1961), p. 128.

  43. 43.

    See, e.g., Human Rights Watch (2012).

  44. 44.

    Among others, this is the thesis of Lin et al. (2007), or, Toscano (2015).

  45. 45.

    It must be admitted that a new international agreement on some critical aspects of today’s laws of war may not only take a long time, but this stalemate will likely continue as long as sovereign states think they can exploit the loopholes of the current legal framework due to their technological superiority or strategic advantage. However, the lack of an international agreement does not entail a new Hobbesian state-of-nature of the information era, in which all is permitted among sovereign states. See Pagallo (2015b).

  46. 46.

    Hart (1961), p. 121.

  47. 47.

    See above note 26.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Giurisprudenza, Università di Torino, Turin, Italy

    Ugo Pagallo

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  1. Ugo Pagallo
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  1. Institute for Legal Informatics, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Japan

    Marcelo Corrales

  2. Faculty of Law, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Mark Fenwick

  3. Institute for Legal Informatics, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Nikolaus Forgó

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Pagallo, U. (2017). LegalAIze: Tackling the Normative Challenges of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Through the Secondary Rules of Law. In: Corrales, M., Fenwick, M., Forgó, N. (eds) New Technology, Big Data and the Law. Perspectives in Law, Business and Innovation. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5038-1_11

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