Give robots 'personhood' status, EU committee argues

Getty A Tanscorp UU smart robot is displayed at CES 2017 at the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas. The European parliament has urged the drafting of a set of regulations to govern the use and creation of robots and artificial intelligence, including a form of "electronic personhood" to ensure rights and responsibilities for the most capable AI. In a 17-2 vote, with two abstentions, the parliament's legal affairs committee passed the report, which outlines one possible framework for regulation. "A growing number of areas of our daily lives are increasingly affected by robotics," said the report's author, Luxembourgish MEP Mady Delvaux. "In order to address this reality and to ensure that robots are and will remain in the service of humans, we urgently need to create a robust European legal framework".