Courses & Programmes

Amongst emerging technologies robotics and artificial intelligence are
prominent both in terms of existing as well as expected use in society.
These technologies are special, because they come close to how we humans
function. At this moment both robots and artificial intelligence are
primarily used for specific tasks (playing games, surgery, self-driving
cars), but developments are moving fast. What exactly the future brings
is difficult to tell, but no one denies the potential and risks related
to robotics and artificial intelligence. Not surprisingly, in the legal
and policy arena an active discussion is going on related to legal and
ethical issues. These are the issues addressed in this course. The
legal angle includes both existing law and the need for new law. If new
law is needed, discussion will also be on how this new law should be
drafted. For instance, presently the European Parliament is analyzing if
maybe some time in the future we may need some sort of legal personality
for robots, and Harari is even fantasying about legal personhood for
algorithms. Ethics can apply to both the development and use of robots
and artificial intelligence. In this course ethics is primarily used to
either constrain the application of existing law or to guide the
drafting of new law.

Applications that are covered in this course include softbots, the
internet of (robot) things, ambient technology, autonomous intelligent
vehicles, and social robots (care and sex).