Humans With, Not Versus Robots

Mocanu, Diana [UCL]

Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld postulated, synthesizing seemingly unbudging legal tradition, that law is about (a finite set of) relationships between humans. First animals and now, increasingly, robots make us question this. This paper will discuss in some detail the ways in which the law might accommodate some of the relationships that humans have with robots. These relationships can vary greatly as to their degree of closeness between the parties, ranging from the rather detached, in which robots are seen as tools (which arguably forms the great majority of cases now and, some argue, should always be so), to quite up close and personal as is the case with certain robots which are seen as companions or partners (increasingly being reported as a trend we are moving towards), to even seeing them as part and parcel, as extensions of our own person or body parts. Since our relationship to our tools has been dealt with by law and is largely uncontroversial, the current article will focus on human-robot collaborations and what legal shape they may take, exploring available legal avenues, as well as innovations in terms of legal status.