As robots increasingly move from industrial environments to the real world, human safety has become an important issue. Unlike industrial robots that perform repetitive tasks in controlled environments, household and real-world robots will have a relative amount of autonomy, and will work in ambiguous, human-centered environments. Before such robots become widespread, regulators are trying to determine how to approach the safety and legal issues that may arise. In a study published in the International Journal of Social Robotics, researchers proposed a framework for a legal system for next-generation robot safety issues. The goal is to ensure safer robot design through safety intelligence and to provide a method for handling accidents when they occur. The guiding principle of the study’s proposed system is to categorize robots as third-existence entities, since they are neither living or biological (first existence), or non-living/non-biological (second existence). Third-existence entities will resemble living things in appearance and behavior, but will not be self-aware. Robots are currently legally classified as second existence, or human property, but the authors believe that a third-existence classification could simplify incidents involving accidents and responsibility. A major component of integrating robots into human society will involve dealing with open texture risk, or risk that occurs due to unpredictable interactions in unstructured environments, such as getting robots to understand the subtleties of human language.
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