What should the law do in the face of artificial intelligence？
On February 15th, children in Xidayuan Community, Yanda, Haigang District, Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province experienced learning robot science knowledge. Photo by Cao Jianxiong/Bright Picture
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editorial comment/note
Intelligent robot, autonomous driving, AI creation, speech recognition … … At present, the application of artificial intelligence is more and more extensive, which also produces a series of legal problems, and has not yet reached a broad consensus. Technology is a double-edged sword, and artificial intelligence technology is no exception. This issue of the special edition of the rule of law issues three expert articles to discuss how to respond to the development and application of artificial intelligence from jurisprudence and law, so that artificial intelligence can develop healthily under the legal norms and benefit mankind.
The emergence and wide application of intelligent robots is undoubtedly a major event in the 21st century, which will not only cause new industrial revolution and social change, but also subvert many traditional social structures and human concepts. As early as 1942, isaac asimov, a famous science fiction writer, put forward the famous three principles of robots in his science fiction "Dance Around": first, no harm to human beings; Second, obey human orders; Third, protect yourself as much as possible. The author thinks that this is not only a basic principle that should be followed in robot design, but also a principle that must be fully considered in robot legislation. Facing the rapid development of modern science and technology represented by artificial intelligence, human beings must pay close attention to the great impact of technology on social relations and social concepts, and at the same time make full use of the guiding, regulating and promoting functions of law to realize the benign interaction between law and technological progress.
Using a good legal system to promote the development of science and technology
Law not only undertakes the functions of behavior regulation, conflict resolution, social control and public management, but also has the mission of promoting social development and guiding social life. A good robot legal system should be a social wealth creation method that can fully mobilize the creative enthusiasm of social subjects and promote social and economic development, and a market economy catalytic method that can build a convenient conversion channel between invention creation and wealth creation.
Therefore, on the one hand, we should apply good institutional design to meet the objective requirements of robot development, actively use robots to liberate people’s functions, realize people’s all-round development, and actively improve the relationship between people and nature and between people and society. On the other hand, we should give full play to the value leading function of law to scientific research. From the development experience, not all technological achievements can benefit mankind. Therefore, not all scientific activities will be encouraged by law (such as human cloning technology and head-changing technology, etc.). While fully affirming the great convenience that artificial intelligence has brought to the liberation of human productive forces, we must also attach great importance to the subversive influence of artificial intelligence on traditional social institutions, social relations and human relations, and strictly delimit the forbidden area for the role (activity) of artificial intelligence. At present, due to the lack of necessary practical data on the possible negative impact of robot activities on human beings, and the fact that human beings are not fully prepared to live in harmony with robots, more restrictions should be made on the autonomous activities of robots in early robot legislation. With the improvement of artificial intelligence technology and the gradual enhancement of the ability of natural people to get along with robots, the restrictions on robot behavior can be gradually relaxed by constantly amending the law.
Establish the principle of human priority and security priority
Modern countries have established a people-oriented legislative concept. This requires that all legislation should focus on improving people’s living conditions and living environment, enhancing human well-being and promoting people’s all-round development. This is both the essential requirement of civilized legislation and the proper meaning of good law and good governance. A good law here must first be fair, secondly meet the needs of most people, and finally meet the expectations of the public for the law and the basic requirements of public order and good customs.
As far as robot legislation is concerned, the application of robots will not only bring about profound social changes, but also affect the development of human beings, their cognition and even endanger their survival. As Hawking said: "The real risk of artificial intelligence is not its malice, but its ability. A super-intelligent artificial intelligence is excellent in achieving its goals. If these goals are inconsistent with ours, we will get into trouble. Therefore, the success of artificial intelligence may be the biggest event in the history of human civilization, but artificial intelligence may also be the end of human civilization! " Therefore, the principle and concept of human priority must be established in relevant legislation, with respect for human existence, human life and health, human interests and human safety as the fundamental purpose.
At the same time, the relevant legislation must not only pay attention to the technical connotation of robots, but also pay attention to their cultural connotation. The relevant system design should not be a technical norm with only procedural operational significance, but a perfect combination of technology and morality full of humanistic care and ethical spirit. On the one hand, we must resolutely exclude artificial intelligence technology products that violate public order and good customs and may challenge the bottom line of human ethics from the protection of the law. On the other hand, through policies or laws, we must strictly control and restrict those technologies that may affect human ethics, and we must leave enough safety redundancy for the application of technologies with unknown risks to prevent the devastating blow that may be brought to mankind due to the out-of-control technology.
Carefully admit the legal subject qualification of robots.
After the appearance of robots, their identity and subject qualification are highly valued. In 2017, the robot Sophia was granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia. John frank Weaver, an American lawyer, published "Robots are Human — — How will artificial intelligence change the law? The book puts forward that robots should be given the same legal status as people because they already have many abilities of natural people, such as thinking ability, discriminating ability, purposeful activity ability, certain judgment ability and independent decision-making ability. In fact, this is not the first time to question the exclusive subject status of human beings. It has been raised many times before the emergence of robots, among which the most typical is the dispute over the subject status of animals.
Judging from the current development process, although robots have many elements of human beings, they are not enough to compete with human beings. Although the robot may have thinking, it has not risen to a living state, and it does not have the ability required by life to form its own body and reproduce by using external substances, grow and develop according to genetic characteristics, and adapt to the environment in time when the external environment changes. Therefore, in theory, robot, as an industrial design, only has a service life without natural life, and certainly does not enjoy the right to life with life as the carrier.
Robots are produced according to the pre-design of human beings, so they are predictable, reproducible and classifiable in nature, while predictable activities cannot be explained and regulated by traditional legal acts. In addition, robots have no morality, conscience, conscience, ethics, religion, rules and habits that natural people have, only the strength of their functions. Therefore, it is impossible for a robot to have a sense of morality, only laws summarized based on repeated and pre-designed programs, and thus there is no judgment of good and evil and behavior choice based on inner perception (conscience) necessary for civil subjects. Nor can the law achieve the effect of restraining or correcting its illegal behavior by negatively evaluating its behavior. Finally, robots don’t have the inherent perception ability to interact with the surrounding environment, and their activities to transform nature are all completed under the design, command and command of human beings. In this sense, robots are not human beings, at best, they are only quasi-natural people. Robots also have no independent property ability and responsibility ability. After robots do harm to human beings, only by punishing their actual controllers (designers and users) can we truly achieve the goal of paying equal attention to punishment and protection.
Fully respect the public’s right to know.
Artificial intelligence technology and its application is not only a simple technological creation, but also a major historical change that has a far-reaching impact on the future of mankind and concerns everyone’s vital interests. In the face of powerful robots, the employment opportunities of natural persons in every industry and every field may be deprived, and the living space of every individual may be severely squeezed. The public’s acquisition of information and knowledge is not only a condition for their integration into public life, but also an inevitable requirement for safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests. Therefore, every natural person should have the full right to know about artificial intelligence technology, and have the right to know what robots mean to themselves after they are widely used.
In the relevant legislation, the public’s right to know and participate must be fully protected. The application of major artificial intelligence technologies should be widely solicited and scientifically demonstrated. It should be emphasized that the development and application of any artificial intelligence products should not be at the expense of the interests of natural persons or the public interests. At the same time, we must effectively balance the interests of all parties, especially between producers and the general public. On the one hand, the relevant system design should fully protect the creative enthusiasm of R&D personnel and encourage them to invent more and higher quality artificial intelligence products; on the other hand, it should ensure that the public can share more social and economic benefits and other human welfare arising from the progress of science and technology.
Establish a legal system of artificial intelligence in line with national conditions
Law serves the society, and any law must be rooted in a specific soil to play its greatest role. To formulate artificial intelligence laws that meet the needs of China, on the one hand, we must fully respect the development level of artificial intelligence technology. Without sufficient practical experience, we can’t design a complete legal system of artificial intelligence with world-leading significance and demonstration function for the time being; On the other hand, it should also be noted that the development of artificial intelligence technology is not only the need to seize the commanding heights of emerging technologies in the world, but also the general trend of social and economic development in the world.
Therefore, our laws must actively respond to the development needs of artificial intelligence technology and meet the development requirements of artificial intelligence technology through good system design. At the same time, we must actively learn from foreign legislative experience and judicial practice experience in the field of artificial intelligence, and improve the relevant legal design as soon as possible. The urgent task is to formulate laws and regulations such as the Basic Law on Artificial Intelligence and the Law on the Promotion of Artificial Intelligence Industry as soon as possible, to clarify China’s basic attitude towards the development of artificial intelligence and robot industry, and at the same time, to introduce regulations such as ethical review methods for artificial intelligence products and design guidelines for artificial intelligence products, so as to take precautions and use legislation in advance to prevent social problems that may be brought about by robot applications.
(Author: Zhao Wanyi, Vice President of china law society Commercial Law Research Association and Professor of Southwest University of Political Science and Law)