Book Review: ‘The Reasonable Robot Artificial Intelligence And The Law’ – Intellectual Property – Luxembourg – Mondaq News Alerts

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While Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been known as ascientific discipline since the 1950s, companies have only begun touse it significantly in internal processes and their productsduring the last 10 years. This is because the necessary computingpower and mass data storage have only been available ateconomically reasonable costs for a few years. Prominent examplesare the supercomputers Watson (IBM) and AlphaGo Master(DeepMind/Alphabet) that can win Jeopardy, beat chess grandmastersand play the highly complex game of Go better than any humanbeing.

AI has also found its way into many commercial products, like(self-driving) cars, marketing optimization, translation software,chatbots, predictive maintenance and medical diagnosis. It evensupports lawyers in due diligence tasks, research and analytics ofcase law and prior art, as well as contract automation (drafting,negotiation, and archiving). Deloitte's recent study suggests thatninety percent of seasoned adopters believe that AI is"very" or "critically" important to theirbusiness today.

The adoption of AI is a fact that cannot, and should not, beavoided. Nevertheless, by raising fears of unemployment andsupremacy over human beings, it needs to be the subject of legalregulation. The challenge of developing AI law is to providesufficient incentive to invest in research and AI-supportedapplications, while at the same time protecting humans. Not onlyfrom harsh economic consequences, but also discrimination, stateand corporate surveillance, and irrepressible actions ofindependent-acting AI against human welfare'sinterests.

This is precisely where patent attorney and lawprofessorRyanAbbott'sbook,"The Reasonable Robot ArtificialIntelligence and the Law," comes into play. It not onlyraises questions of how to deal with AI from a tax, tort,Intellectual Property and criminal law perspective but alsosuggests answers. Ryan Abbott advocates for "AI legalneutrality," even in the assessment of tort liability.According to this concept, the same legal standards should apply bydefault, whether it was a human actor or an AI that caused damage.While judges consider how a "reasonable person"would have acted in a particular situation, it might becomestandard to ask how a sufficiently trained AI (a"reasonable robot") would have acted in the samecircumstance.

Today, humans may outperform AI in hazardous activities (e.g.,road traffic), but there will come a time when AI surpasses humans,and then the question might be whether a reasonable person couldhave used AI to avoid damage. However, the principle of AI legalneutrality does not mean that AI and people must be treatedequally, or that AI should enjoy the same rights as humans.Therefore, the author argues that AI should be recognized as anentity that morally deserves rights and can, for example, claimtangible or intangible property rights"only"if this would exceptionally benefitpeople. Furthermore, he states that AI legal neutrality should notcome at the expense of transparency and accountability.

There might come a time when AI surpasses humans, even inhazardous activities. However, the author states that AI legalneutrality should never come at the expense ofaccountability.

A focus of the book revolves around the patentability ofinventions created by AI, and how the use of AI in R&D impactsthe "obviousness" of an invention and the"skilled person" test. As an initiator of the ArtificialInventor Project, which transparently applies for patents forinventions developed by an AI called DABUS, Abbott believes that it is in society'sbest interest to grant patent protection to AI-generatedinventions. This creates an incentive for innovation, which is thevery reason for IP protection. However, while current patentlaws may not be flawed, they need to be adapted to address thedirection in which technology is headed. The author argues thatthis allows us to take stock and rethink how IP can benefitsociety.

The latter proposition demonstrates that Abbott treats thissensitive topic (which will significantly affect everyone becauseof AI's potential to cut jobs, limit human interaction andquestion human supremacy) based on firm ethical values. It alsoplaces people's and society's benefits at the center of hisconsiderations, rather than the technological or economic interestsof a few, while also addressing the pressing questions in ahistorical context.

Ryan Abbott has written an excellent book that is both anelementary introduction to the subject and a sound basis forforward-thinking considerations about how legal regulation canincentivize AI development while mitigating severe consequences forhumans.

The content of this article is intended to provide a generalguide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be soughtabout your specific circumstances.

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Book Review: 'The Reasonable Robot Artificial Intelligence And The Law' - Intellectual Property - Luxembourg - Mondaq News Alerts