Basic labour rights could be extended to robots. The European Parliament's legal affairs committee is considering plans to declare them'electronic persons'. MEPs, led by a socialist from Luxembourg, have suggested that member states should think about a world driven by automation - one solution discussed is a guaranteed universal basic income. Basic labour rights could be extended to robots. The European Parliament's legal affairs committee is considering plans to declare them'electronic persons' Robotics is expected to produce machines that are no longer just'tools' but agents in their own right, able to teach themselves, roam around and make decisions, the committee's report states.

Whenever people go from one place to another, they don't think much about the roads and sidewalks that pass beneath them. But this infrastructure, known as the public right-of-way, doesn't work by magic. It is managed and regulated by specific laws. People don't own the roads they travel on, but streets and sidewalks provide an easement--a right of use or passage separate from that of ownership. For example: a single-family homeowner usually owns the sidewalk that flanks a property, particularly if that sidewalk falls behind a tree-planting strip that separates it from the street. By local standard or writ, the homeowner grants an easement to the general public to use the sidewalk, utility companies to use the curb where utility lines run, and so forth.

Computer programs can already match judges in decision-making, a conference highlighting the growing use of artificial intelligence in law heard last night. A poll of more than 300 attendees at the Law Society's Robots and Lawyers conference found that 48% of respondents' firms already use some form artificial intelligence (AI) -- though only 4% agreed that lawyers will eventually be replaced by robots. However, research conducted by the University of Liverpool suggests a decision-making algorithm could be as effective at dispensing justice as a judge. Professor Katie Atkinson (pictured), head of the university's department of computer science, said the university had researched whether its computer programs could replicate the reasoning that judges go through. Looking at'a body of case law' covering 32 cases, the programs had a 96% success rate and got only one case wrong, she said.

Artificial intelligence in the professions seems here to stay but Sue Bramall asks: is it anything but artificial? In a technology round table report published recently by one of the leading legal magazines, one of the panel of four declared that artificial intelligence (AI) "is unlikely to take center stage just yet, and certainly not in the short-to-medium term" with two other participants concurring. I suspect this quote may come back to haunt him, as the fourth member of the panel had already seen the future and quoted the developments in AI which had already taken place in 2015 between BLP and RAVN, between Pinsent Masons and Cerico, and between Dentons with IBM Watson. The theme of'artificial intelligence' is one of the hot conference topics for 2016 – so much sexier than'big data'. However, such intelligence is anything but artificial.

Back in May, I mentioned that ROSS Intelligence, based on IBM's Watson platform, had announced that Baker & Hostetler had agreed to license ROSS Intelligence's artificial intelligence legal research product, ROSS. The firm will use ROSS in its Bankruptcy, Restructuring and Creditors' Rights team. Latham will be using ROSS to streamline their research. As is customary, ROSS is not described as a "robot attorney" but as a complement to the firm attorneys which empowers them. I suspect that is currently quite true, but doubt that it will remain that way.

A new proposal from the European Parliament calls for working robots to be classified as "electronic persons," and for their owners to pay social security on their behalf. The draft motion, published online this month, aims to address the new challenges that Europe's robotic workforce will present as robot technology becomes more pervasive and intelligent. The proposal says growing automation will require new frameworks for taxation and legal liability, but as Reuters reports, it faces opposition from some robotics companies. The rise in automation and artificial intelligence has raised concerns in Europe and elsewhere over economic effects, including unemployment, inequality, and social security systems. The proposal aims to address those concerns with a legal framework that would consider "that at least the most sophisticated autonomous robots could be established as having the status of electronic persons with specific rights and obligations."

MUNICH – Europe's growing army of robot workers could be classed as "electronic persons" and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution. Robots are being deployed in ever-greater numbers in factories and also taking on tasks such as personal care or surgery, raising fears over unemployment, wealth inequality and alienation. Their growing intelligence, pervasiveness and autonomy requires rethinking everything from taxation to legal liability, a draft European Parliament motion, dated May 31, suggests. Some robots are even taking on a human form. Visitors to the world's biggest travel show in March were greeted by a lifelike robot developed by Japan's Toshiba and were helped by another made by France's Aldebaran Robotics.

We are all familiar with the doomsday scenario depicted by many modern films, when artificial intelligence goes bad and takes over the world. But this is not going to happen, according to Google chairman, Eric Schmidt, who claims that super-intelligent robots will someday help use solve problems such as population growth and climate change. During a talk in Cannes, he said AI will be developed for the benefit of humanity and there will be systems in place in case anything goes awry. Artificial intelligence will let scientists solve some of the world's'hard problems.' During a talk in Cannes, Eric Schmidt said AI will be developed for the benefit of humanity and there will be systems in place in case anything goes awry. 'We've all seen those movies,' he said.

A university professor is heading the Japanese version of a U.S.-led movement to exonerate people who have been wrongfully charged and imprisoned using DNA testing. Mitsuyuki Inaba, 51, who is neither a lawyer nor an expert in criminal law, is a professor at Ritsumeikan University's College of Policy Science. He believes Japan's criminal justice system is rife with fundamental failures that lead to wrongful imprisonment due to the "unscientific" way in which investigations are carried out. Inaba, who specializes in cognitive science, took up the post of director at the Innocence Project Japan, which was launched in April in cooperation with lawyers and other legal experts. Similar movements have sprouted in Britain, South Africa and Taiwan.

An industrial robotic arm pours a glass of beer at the Automatica trade fair in Munich on Tuesday. Munich: Europe's growing army of robot workers could be classed as "electronic persons" and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution.Robots are being deployed in ever-greater numbers in factories and also taking on tasks such as personal care or surgery, raising fears over unemployment, wealth inequality and alienation. Their growing intelligence, pervasiveness and autonomy requires rethinking everything from taxation to legal liability, a draft European Parliament motion, dated May 31, suggests. Some robots are even taking on a human form. Visitors to the world's biggest travel show in March were greeted by a lifelike robot developed by Japan's Toshiba and were helped by another made by France's Aldebaran Robotics.