To reason about where responsibility does and should lie in complex situations involving AI-enabled systems, we first need a sufficiently clear and detailed cross-disciplinary vocabulary for talking about responsibility. Responsibility is a triadic relation involving an actor, an occurrence, and a way of being responsible. As part of a conscious effort towards 'unravelling' the concept of responsibility to support practical reasoning about responsibility for AI, this paper takes the three-part formulation, 'Actor A is responsible for Occurrence O' and identifies valid combinations of subcategories of A, is responsible for, and O. These valid combinations - which we term "responsibility strings" - are grouped into four senses of responsibility: role-responsibility; causal responsibility; legal liability-responsibility; and moral responsibility. They are illustrated with two running examples, one involving a healthcare AI-based system and another the fatal collision of an AV with a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona in 2018. The output of the paper is 81 responsibility strings. The aim is that these strings provide the vocabulary for people across disciplines to be clear and specific about the different ways that different actors are responsible for different occurrences within a complex event for which responsibility is sought, allowing for precise and targeted interdisciplinary normative deliberations.

The day is coming--some say has already arrived--when artificial intelligence starts to invent things that its human creators could not. But our laws are lagging behind this technology, UNSW experts say. It's not surprising these days to see new inventions that either incorporate or have benefitted from artificial intelligence (AI) in some way, but what about inventions dreamt up by AI--do we award a patent to a machine? This is the quandary facing lawmakers around the world with a live test case in the works that its supporters say is the first true example of an AI system named as the sole inventor. In commentary published in the journal Nature, two leading academics from UNSW Sydney examine the implications of patents being awarded to an AI entity.

Dr Thaler's international crusade for recognition of machine inventorship (which I reported on last year) is nearing the end of the line in the UK. Last week, in Thaler v Comptroller General of Patents Trade Marks And Designs [2021] EWCA Civ 1374, the Court of Appeal upheld the rejection of his DABUS patent applications. In 2018, Dr Thaler, the owner of DABUS (an artificial intelligence ("AI") creativity machine) submitted two patent applications to the UKIPO naming himself as the owner and DABUS as the inventor. The UKIPO rejected his applications on the basis that, for the purposes of the Patents Act 1977 ("PA 1997"), the inventor must be a "person" (with legal personality, such as a human or a corporate entity), and considering how ownership is derived from inventorship, Dr Thaler could not be the owner in the absence of a valid inventor. In 2020, in the Court of First Instance, Marcus Smith J upheld the UKIPO's decision, concluding that section 7 PA 1997, which sets out the classes of persons to whom patents can be granted, could not be interpreted to cover non-legal persons such as machines. On that basis, he found that the UKIPO was entitled to withdraw Dr Thaler's application under section 13 PA 1997.

"creating a specific legal status for robots in the long run, so that at least the most sophisticated autonomous robots could be established as having the status of electronic persons responsible for making good any damage they may cause, and possibly applying electronic personality to cases where robots make autonomous decisions or otherwise interact with third parties independently." In this article, we ask whether a purely synthetic entity could and should be made a legal person. Drawing on the legal and philosophical framework used to evaluate the legal personhood of other non-human entities like corporations, we argue that the case for electronic personhood is weak. Though this article begins with philosophical premises, its orientation is ultimately pragmatic. A legal system by the people exists ultimately to protect the interests of the people.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an established alternative to human capabilities in computation, data-driven optimisation and manual labour. However, the latest models are also capable of that most human of qualities – creativity. You forgot to provide an Email Address. This email address doesn't appear to be valid. This email address is already registered.

In January, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament put forward a draft report urging the creation and adoption of EU-wide rules to corral the myriad issues arising from the widespread use of robots and AI--a development, it says, is "poised to unleash a new industrial revolution." It's an interesting read, and a valiant effort to get a handle on how to standardize and regulate the ever-expanding robot universe: drones, industrial robots, care robots, medical robots, entertainment robots, robots in farming--you name it, they're all in there. Beginning with Frankenstein's monster, Prague's golem, and Karel Čapek's robot and ending with a code of ethics for robotics engineers and some daunting lists of "shoulds" for robot designers and end users, the 22-page worry catalog toggles between practical concerns about liability, accountability, and safety--who's going to pay when a robot or a self-driving car has an accident?--and The practical concerns addressed include a call for the creation of a European agency for robotics and artificial intelligence to support the European Commission in its regulation- and legislation-making efforts. Definitions and classifications of robots and smart robots need to be detailed, and a robot registration system described.

Over the past century, we have made massive strides in the rights revolution. These include rights for women, children, the LGBT community, animals, and so much more. Exploring the future, we must ask ourselves: what next? Will we ever fight for the rights of artificial intelligence? If so, when will this AI rights revolution occur, and what will it look like? We talk about protecting ourselves from AI, but what about protecting AI from us? To create a desirable future where humans and conscious machines are at peace with one another, treating our AI with respect may be a crucial factor in preventing the apocalypse Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates fear.

Over the past century, we have made massive strides in the rights revolution. These include rights for women, children, the LGBT community, animals, and so much more. Exploring the future, we must ask ourselves: what next? Will we ever fight for the rights of artificial intelligence? If so, when will this AI rights revolution occur, and what will it look like? We talk about protecting ourselves from AI, but what about protecting AI from us?

At a recent financial technology conference I was invited to meet Cleo, a friendly automated spirit living within the confines of an iPhone interface that offers financial advice to those who chose to activate her. Described as an "AI assistant for your money," she playfully answered text message queries about bank balances, spending, and budgeting. Despite the futuristic jargon and growing wave of hype around such bots, automated assistants are not really that new. Our world is full of simple bots, like the automatic hand dryer in a public restroom that jets hot air if you trigger its sensor. By now many of us have experience with some that attempt to mimic basic personality, like the tinny voice of the supermarket self-service checkout machine as it coldly attempts to replicate one half of a stilted, human conversation. There are two new trends emerging, though.