I.    Who benefits from the deployment of autonomous weapons systems?  Who loses?

II.    Which of the debates between Schmitt and the human rights groups are based on disputes about facts, and which are disputes about law?  Are the disputes about facts capable of resolution at present, or do we have to wait until the devices are deployed, at which point arguably it is too late?

III.    Do you agree that there is a ‘gap’ in existing international law that fails to cover a killing – or a mass killing – by an ‘autonomous’ weapon system when the creator and deployer of the weapon would not have intended the death(s)?

IV.    The Open Letter suggests that working on killer robots is akin to working on bioweapons? Is this a fair parallel?  Are this letter and similar efforts likely to be an effective tactic?

V.    The US military hews strongly to a doctrine of “command responsibility” sometimes referred to as the Yamashita standard or the Medina standard.  This has been described as:

a duty to ensure that their troops respect that body of law during armed conflict and hostilities. Failure to do so may give rise to liability. A mere “breach of duty”, whereby the commander has not fulfilled the responsibilities expected of his rank, is usually dealt with through disciplinary action. However, where a commander fails to prevent or punish violations of IHL by subordinates, criminal proceedings are likely, and the punishment to be meted out will reflect the gravity and nature of the crime committed by the subordinate. … [M]ilitary commanders and other superiors have an affirmative duty to act in preventing violations of IHL by their subordinates. In essence, the commander acquires liability by default or omission. Having evaded his responsibility as a superior to intervene in ensuring the respect of IHL, he will be seen as accountable for his subordinates and, in certain circumstances, as even more culpable than them.

Is the use of autonomous weapons systems consistent with command responsibility?  If so, will the commander be responsible for whatever the AWS does? If not, does that mean, as Crotoff suggests, that no one is responsible? Is the deployment of weapons for which no one is responsible itself a potential war crime?

(subject to updates)

I.    Robotic policing offers the potential for numerous benefits.  List them in order from most valuable to least valuable.  Now annotate your list with your guess as to the likelihood of achieving this benefit if we have robotic police.

II.    Robotic policing offers the potential for numerous harms.  List them in order from most harmful to least harmful.  Now annotate your list with your guess as to the likelihood of suffering this harm if we have robotic police.

III.    What are ths sorts of tasks that police currently do which are vulnerable to the difficulties set out in Do Robots Dream of Electric Laws?  Can you identify other common police activities that might not be subject to these difficulties?

IV.    The prospect of robotic police inevitably shades into the issue of algorithmic justice. Who writes the algorithm, and what data we feed it, are difficult and contested terrain. Will robotic police be easier or harder to monitor than human police?

(subject to updates)

1. What are ‘drones’ (ie Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) good for?
   1. To what extent do these potential gains depend on drones having autonomy, and to what extent can they be achieved by remote-controlled vehicles?
   2. Which industries do you expect to see making the most use of drones?
2. The FAA has predicted that there may 7 million drones active in the US by 2020. What problems do you foresee if that prediction is correct?
   1. Can you rank them by most dangerous/serious to least serious?
   2. Where does privacy fall on that spectrum of risks?
3. What problems do the latest FAA rules (and the earlier rule requiring that drones be registered and carry a marking identifying their registration number) suggest that the FAA has prioritized?
   1. Are these the right priorities?
   2. Are these the right priorities for the federal government?  What role is left for the states?
4. What kind of law is best suited to deal with the problems drones are expected to create?
   1. Private law (e.g. tort law) at the state level
   2. Criminal law
      1. State
      2. Federal
   3. Regulatory law
      1. State
      2. Federal
   4. Consumer/UAV pilot education and/or licensing
   5. Other government powers e.g. subsidy or taxation
   6. Some combination of the above (be prepared to specify which problems should be attacked with which tool
5. A former student recently wrote to me and asked if she should cover up the clear glass skylight in her bathroom.  What should I have said?

(subject to updates)

I. What sorts of beings have (or deserve) rights? If aliens from another star system landed on Earth, would you say they had ‘human rights’ or the equivalent?

II. How are the argument concerning legal rights for robots similar or different to those regarding legal rights for crested macaques? Cf these short news articles:

A. David Post, I’d be smiling, too, if I owned the copyright to this photograph (Sept. 23, 2015), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/09/23/id-be-smiling-too-if-i-owned-the-copyright-to-this-photograph/ and
B. David Post, The Monkey Selfie is Back (Sept. 1, 2016), https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/09/01/the-monkey-selfie-is-back/ .
C. David Kravet, Judge says monkey cannot own copyright to famous selfies, Ars Technica (Jan. 6, 2016), http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/judge-says-monkey-cannot-own-copyright-to-famous-selfies/

III. For legal purposes are robots (or some robots, or imaginable robots) best considered

A. Citizens
B. Aliens
C. Slaves
D. Animals
E. Toasters
F. Something other existing legal category (if you pick this, be prepared to specify what!)
G. Something sui generis (if you pick this, be prepared to specify what, and what rights that status brings)

IV. Who should decide (and by what process) the ‘rights’ extended to robots?

V. If you see ‘rights’ as something that the bearers either have inherently, or have because of their ability to make claims backed by either moral suasion or threat of force, how long do you figure before the Robot Revolution? Skynet?