Bryant Walker Smith
Bryant Walker Smith is an assistant professor in the School of Law and (by courtesy) in the School of Engineering at the University of South Carolina.
Robots are already in widespread use in manufacturing and warfare. You see them increasingly in hospitals, warehouses, even homes. The mainstreaming of robotics presents a number of interesting puzzles for administrative, tort, and other areas of the law.
CIS has emerged as a national leader in exploring the intersection of law and robotics. Our staff has published on a variety of topics, including autonomous driving, the domestic use of drones, robotics and privacy, and liability for personal robots. We have held several events around artificial intelligence and robotics, including the annual Robot Block Party for National Robotics Week that draws thousands of visitors.
Bryant Walker Smith is an assistant professor in the School of Law and (by courtesy) in the School of Engineering at the University of South Carolina.
Dr. Asaro is Associate Professor in the School of Media Studies at the New School in New York City. He is the co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, and has written on lethal robotics from the perspective of just war theory and human rights. Dr. Asaro's research also examines agency and autonomy, liability and punishment, and privacy and surveillance as it applies to consumer robots, industrial automation, smart buildings, aerial drones and autonomous vehicles.
Ryan Calo is an assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Law and a former research director at CIS. A nationally recognized expert in law and emerging technology, Ryan's work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Wired Magazine, and other news outlets. Ryan serves on several advisory committees, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Future of Privacy Forum.
Patrick Lin is the director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group, based at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he is also an associate philosophy professor. He has published several books and papers in the field of technology ethics, especially with respect to nanotechnology, human enhancement, robotics, cyberwarfare, space exploration, and other areas. He teaches courses in ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of technology, and philosophy of law. Dr.
By Bryant Walker Smith on December 7, 2015 at 8:52 am
By Ryan Calo on October 25, 2015 at 8:35 am
Hope to see you!
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We invite submissions for We Robot 2016 to be held in Coral Gables, Florida on April 1-2, 2016 at the University of Miami School of Law. We Robot–the premier US conference on law and policy relating to Robotics that began at the University of Miami School of Law in 2012, and has since been held at Stanford and University of Washington–returns to Miami Law April 1st-2nd in 2016. Attendees include lawyers, engineers, philosophers, robot builders, ethicists, and regulators who are on the front lines of robot theory, design, or development. The main conference will be preceded by a day of special workshops (see below). The conference web site is http://robots.law.miami.edu/2016.
By Bryant Walker Smith on May 22, 2015 at 1:42 pm
By Bryant Walker Smith on May 20, 2015 at 9:42 am
In the first of this two-article series, we saw how augmented reality (AR) is causing friction between individual liberty and public interest. AR appmakers are being required by some parks to obtain a permit before they can “put” virtual objects in those public spaces, given the sudden crowds the apps can cause.
This article looks at the same core dilemma with another technology: automated driving.
With very rare exceptions, automakers are famously coy about crash dilemmas. They don’t want to answer questions about how their self-driving cars would respond to weird, no-win emergencies. This is understandable, since any answer can be criticized—there’s no obvious solution to a true dilemma, so why play that losing game?
This Article focuses on one cyberphysical domain — automated driving — to methodically analyze the so-called liability problem. It considers how automated driving could affect product liability, how product liability could affect automated driving, and how each could advance or impede the prevention of injury and the compensation of victims.
Download the paper from SSRN.
"As Bryant Walker Smith, assistant professor at University of South Carolina puts it, “we focus on what’s really sexy, like self-driving cars. And we forget about all of the supporting technologies that could be really important.”"
""Those deployments will start small but grow fast," said Bryant Walker Smith, a specialist in autonomous vehicle regulation at the University of South Carolina School of Law. Already, Waymo plans to deploy a robot-car ride-hailing service in the Phoenix area later this year."
“We will continue to see a mix of approaches in other states. Many are likely to have far less regulation than California,” said Bryant Walker Smith, assistant professor at the University of South Carolina’s law school, who writes regularly about autonomous driving."
"“There were lots of overlaps and informal sharing and all kinds of personalities early on,” says Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at Stanford who specializes in automated driving technology. The Uber–Waymo case can be seen, he says, as “tidying up loose ends dealing with the remnant messiness from the beginning,” said Smith. Still, just because the case is settled doesn’t mean the road that lies ahead for automated driving is any less rocky."
Part of the Cyber Insecurity series.
Probe the difficult questions that we will need to address as human-robot relationships evolve in the coming decades. Explore the nuances of our future and prepare for the complex problems that will rise as our lives become more A.I. dependent.
Adults 18+ Only.
This program is free thanks to the generosity of the Lowell Institute.
In 2013, Elon Musk proposed an "open source transportation concept" of levitating vehicles zooming passengers through vacuum tubes at 760 miles an hour. It would be weatherproof, energy-efficient, relatively inexpensive, have autonomous controls. Its impact on urban and inter-city transport could reshape economies and families.
U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a hearing on Wednesday, November 16, 2016, at 3:00 p.m. entitled “Exploring Augmented Reality.” The hearing will examine the emergence, benefits, and implications of augmented reality technologies. Unlike virtual reality that creates a wholly simulated reality, augmented reality attempts to superimpose images and visual data on the physical world in an intuitive way.
Witnesses:
• Mr. Brian Blau, Research Vice President, Gartner
Attendees will hear leading speakers, participate in interactive breakout sessions, and network with key innovators in this exciting field. Don't miss what's in store for the Automated Vehicles Symposium 2016.
Affiliate Scholars Bryant Walker Smith and Patrick Lin are confirmed speakers.
For more information, visit the conference website.
March 8, 2017
In 2013, Elon Musk proposed an "open source transportation concept" of levitating vehicles zooming passengers through vacuum tubes at 760 miles an hour. It would be weatherproof, energy-
November 30, 2016
FLI’s Ariel Conn recently spoke with Heather Roff and Peter Asaro about autonomous weapons. Roff, a research scientist at The Global Security Initiative at Arizona State University and a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, recently compiled an international database of weapons systems that exhibit some level of autonomous capabilities. Asaro is a philosopher of science, technology, and media at The New School in New York City.
November 2, 2016
Peter Asaro (assistant professor in the School of Media Studies at The New School) and S. Matthew Liao (director of the Center for Bioethics at New York University) talk to Live Science's Denise Chow and Space.com's Tariq Malik about the ethics of AI.
October 15, 2016
On October 14-15, 2016, the NYU Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness in conjunction with the NYU Center for Bioethics hosted a conference on “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence”.