This month, the European Parliament voted in favour of a resolution to create a new ethical-legal framework for robots. The Commission does not have to follow the parliament’s recommendations, but if it refuses it will have to explain why.
The basic idea is reasonable. Today, we spend increasing amounts of time in the infosphere. In this digital ocean, robots are the real natives: we scuba dive, they are like fish. Robots of all kinds will multiply and proliferate, making the infosphere even more their own element. Add artificial intelligence, smartphones, cloud computing, big data, machine learning and the internet of things, and it becomes obvious that there is no time to waste.
We are laying down foundations for the mature information societies of the near future, so we need new ethical frameworks to determine which forms of artificial agency we are happy to see flourishing in them. Against this background, the EU’s initiative provokes mixed feelings: excitement at the aspiration but disappointment at the implementation. There is too much fantasy and too little realism.