Law and Ethics on Robots and Artificial Intelligence - Period 5 Social Sciences & Humanities Program Spring 2020 Semester - Amsterdam

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).

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) awards credits based on the ECTS system. Contact hours listed under a course description may vary due to the combination of lecture-based and independent work required for each course therefore, CEA's recommended credits are based on the ECTS credits assigned by VU Amsterdam. 1 ECTS equals 28 contact hours assigned by VU Amsterdam.