Robots. What are they? Just a new sort of tool, qualitatively different kinds of tools that do things we neither expect nor intend, new kinds of beings? With the incipient explosion of complex robots, we may need to re-examine the way law uses and understands intention, responsibility, causation, and other basic concepts. We’re joined by Ryan Calo, who has achieved the outrageously awesome feat of earning a living thinking about robots. (It’s pronounced Kay-low. So Joe got this one right.) We discuss flying drones, chess computers, driverless cars, antilock brakes, and computer-conceived barbecue sauce.

This show’s links:


Ryan Calo’s faculty profile and writing
Follow-up from listener David on Episode 40: The Split Has Occurred, Shelley v. Kraemer, and Buchanan v. Warley
Lego Mindstorms
Ryan Calo, Robots and Privacy
FIRST Lego League robotics competition for ages nine to fourteen
DJI Phantom Vision 2+ flying drone camera thing capable of making like this one and this one
Mark Berman, National Park Service Bans Drone Use in All National Parks and Chris Vanderveen, Man Banned from Yellowstone after Drone Crash
FAA’s Key Initiatives page on drones
Joan Lowy, Drone Sightings Up Dramatically
Ryan Calo, Robotics and the Lessons of Cyberlaw (including a discussion of the concepts of embodiment, emergence, and social meaning as the core of the legal challenge posed by robotics)
Stephen Johnson, Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
Radiolab, Emergence
Frank Easterbrook, Cyberspace and the Law of the Horse
Cory Doctorow, Why It Is Not Possible to Regulate Robots
Neil Richards and William Smart, How Should the Law Think About Robotics?
Ryan Calo, A Horse of a Different Color: What Robotics Law Can Learn from Cyberlaw
About IBM’s Watson and Deep Blue (the chess machine)
Daniel Suarez, Daemon
Richard Fisher, Is It OK to Torture or Murder a Robot?
Radiolab, Furbidden Knowledge
Nicholas Bakalar, Robotic Surgery Report Card
Studdert, Mello, and Brennan, Medical Malpractice
Ryan Calo, The Case for a Federal Robotics Commission
Excerpt from In re Polemis, the case we forgot the name of
About Amazon’s Kiva Systems, the subsidiary that supplies Amazon with robotic warehouse workers
Rochelle Bilow, We Put a Computer in Charge of Our Test Kitchen for a Day, and Here’s What Happened, and Mark Wilson, I Tasted BBQ Sauce Made By IBM’s Watson, And Loved It
E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops
About the Future Tense event, Can We Imagine Our Way to a Better Future?, including descriptions and video, in which Ryan participated
About cognitive radio
Daria Roithmayr, Complexity Law and Economics
We Robot 2015, meeting April 10-11, 2015 in Seattle
Special Guest: Ryan Calo.