Do robots have rights? The European Parliament addresses artificial intelligence and robotics

A lively discussion is currently under way in the business world regarding possible applications of intelligent IT systems and autonomous machines and equipment. Rapid technical development in these areas has spurred the imagination of users. The application areas are extremely diverse, and include production robots in industry, drones and self-driving delivery robots in logistics and warehousing, healthcare robots and driverless vehicles. What sounds like science fiction has already become reality in some cases, with intelligent robots being particularly common in production and logistics. From a legal viewpoint, there are still a host of unanswered questions around robotics and the artificial intelligence (AI) incorporated into robots. The European Parliament accordingly passed a resolution with recommendations to the European Commission on civil law rules on robotics (2015/2103(INL)) on 16 February 2017; the resolution was adopted with 396 votes in favour, 123 against and 85 abstentions.