Within the walls of a 19th-century chapel on the outskirts of Barcelona, a heart starts to slowly contract. This is not a real heart but a virtual copy of one that still pounds inside a patient's chest. With its 100 million patches of simulated cells, the digital twin--a fully functional simulation of human anatomy-- pumps at a leisurely pace as it tests treatments, from drugs to implants. This digital twin pulses within MareNostrum, a supercomputer used by scientists to simulate features of the real world. These simulations can look just like the real thing, but they are vastly more sophisticated than Hollywood visual effects because they behave like the real thing--from how the heart moves to the charged atoms that zip in and out of its cells.

The legal status of AI-androids able to move and speak has been a major bone of contention between robotics developers, academics, lawmakers, and ethicists over the past few years. Since the draft report's publication, there's been much discussion on the issues related to the liability of robots. Speaking with Daily Star Online, Dr Oliver Bendel, professor of information systems at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts, said that there's no need to grant "electronic persons" with moral rights or any personal status due to a lack of philosophical or ethical grounds. "You only have such rights if you can feel or suffer, if you have a consciousness or a will to live. If one day robots can feel or suffer, if they have a consciousness or a will to live, they must be granted rights. But I don't see any way to get there at the moment. One could at best develop'reverse cyborgs', i.e. let brain and nerve cells grow on technical structures or in a robot. Such reverse or inverted cyborgs might at some point feel something", he said.