Machine medical ethics and robot law

legal necessity or science fiction?

Rob van den Hoven van Genderen

pp. 167-177

in: Simon van Rysewyk, Matthijs Pontier (eds), Machine medical ethics, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

The law is developed by human beings, for human beings, in legal terms, for "natural persons". But during the development of the law in the long journey from the Roman legal system until our modern law system many things have changed. Natural persons are not the only players in the legal system of today. Large and smaller enterprises, organizations and state entities are performing all kinds of legal acts, as legal persons they can be held liable for the things they do. What about intelligence machines that can perform autonomous or semi-autonomous tasks? What about an advanced operating system where human control is hardly noticeable? What about drones operating independently? Are they liable for their acts and, most important, their mistakes? What about the laser cut that went wrong because of a disturbance in the internet that the surgeon did not control? Is the man behind the screen always the responsible party, even if he is not behind the screen? This article will discuss these ongoing questions.