Robotrust and legal responsibility

Ugo Pagallo

pp. 367-379

in: Mariarosaria Taddeo (ed), Trust in technology, Knowledge, Technology & Policy 23, 2010.

Abstract

The paper examines some aspects of today's debate on trust and e-trust and, more specifically, issues of legal responsibility for the production and use of robots. Their impact on human-to-human interaction has produced new problems both in the fields of contractual and extra-contractual liability in that robots negotiate, enter into contracts, establish rights and obligations between humans, while reshaping matters of responsibility and risk in trust relations. Whether or not robotrust concerns human-to-robot or even robot-to-robot relations, there is a new generation of cases involving human-to-human contractual and extra-contractual liability for robots' behaviour because, for the first time, legal systems hold you responsible for what an artificial system autonomously decides to do.