Thoughts on the EU's draft report on robotics

I was asked to write a short op-ed on the European Parliament Law Committee's recommendations on civil law rules for robotics. In the end, the piece didn't get published, so I am posting it here: It is a great shame that most reports of the European Parliament's Committee for Legal Affairs' vote on its Draft Report on Civil Law Rules on Robotics headlined on'personhood' for robots because the report has much else to commend it. Most important among its several recommendations is a proposed code of ethical conduct for roboticists, which explicitly asks designers to research and innovate responsibly. Some may wonder why such an invitation even needs to be made but, given that engineering and computer science education rarely includes classes on ethics (it should), it is really important that robotics engineers reflect on their ethical responsibilities to society – especially given how disruptive robot technologies are. This is not new – great frameworks for responsible research and innovation already exist.