"The latest edition of Science features a multi-part report on the current state of robotics and its future. Leaving aside the discussions therein of pure technology, the most fascinating article is an interview with Ryan Calo of the University of Washington law school. Calo's forthcoming paper on "Robots and the Lessons of Cyberlaw" will appear in a forthcoming issue of the California Law Review.
Calo observes that robots have a way of undermining the law's clear distinction "between a thing and a person.... You get compensated differently when someone else's negligence results in injury to property than to a person. When property is involved, you get market value. With people you have been deprived of that person's companionship. To the extent that people become heavily enmeshed socially with robots, the law will have to decide into what category to sort them.""