"Ryan Calo, who teaches law at the University of Washington, worries about a lack of government resources. “There isn’t enough technical expertise in government,” he says. Calo notes that when a crisis arose in 2009 regarding sudden acceleration in Toyota automobiles, some suggested the problem might lie in vehicle software. But the Department of Transportation did not have the expertise to research it. “So they went and asked NASA to take a break from keeping the space station running and driving robots on Mars to look at this Toyota,” marvels Calo. (NASA’s report found no software glitch.) Calo now argues for the creation of a new federal agency—”a repository of expertise, which like NASA has a whole bunch of computer scientists, whose job is to advise other agencies and congress.” A similar agency called the Office of Technology Assessment advised congress after 1972, but was abolished by Republicans in 1995.
Calo studies the legal and ethical implications of robotics, and finds numerous reasons to worry about the U.S. response to them. “This disconnect between knowledge and policy will be harmful,” he warns. He notes that Nevada, influenced hastily by Google, passed a law to accommodate self-driving cars in 2011. But the law was written to cover fully autonomous vehicles like Google is developing, not the proliferating partially autonomous ones sold by Audi and others. It had to be repealed and rewritten. The Food and Drug Administration approved the use of robotic surgery techniques, but then safety concerns emerged. “The FDA may have moved too quickly on approving robotic surgery,” says Calo, “whereas I and others believe the Federal Aviation Administration is holding up drones unnecessarily.”"
- Date Published:11/20/2014
- Original Publication:The Fiscal Times