CORSO DI ALTA FORMAZIONE Winter School “The Regulation of Robotics & AI in Europe: Legal, Ethical and Economic Implications”

The course, at its second edition, aims at providing students with a broad understanding of all implications of robotics that are going to be increasingly relevant in the legal, political and social debate over the coming years.

According to a study carried out by McKinsey, robotics may have an impact on the market greater than 4.5 trillion per year by 2025. Developing a leading industry in this field, therefore, is strategic: all the world’s largest economies are heavily investing in its research.

At the same time new technologies as biorobotics (bionic limbs, exoskeletons, brain machine interfaces) are going to deeply challenge our understanding of human life and human limits; others, as expert systems and AI, promise to reshape the labor market. Every aspect of our societies is going to be involved and changed: mere technological research is not sufficient to drive new technologies toward a human oriented progress.

Social scientists – lawyers, political scientists, economists – as well as engineers researching these technologies need to get together, addressing the relevant issues raised by new technologies. In order to do so, they need to acquire a new and open interdisciplinary approach involving law, economics, engineering and ethics together.

The course will offer an overview:

• of relevant European regulation, both existing and prospective, in fields such as civil and criminal liability, privacy and data protection, robot-testing, and product safety;
• of the ethical debate triggered by some emerging technologies, including autonomous vehicles, AI and biorobotics products for human enhancement;
• of the European approach to Responsible Research and Innovation;
• of the economic challenges connected with innovation (startups and financing).

Moreover, it will introduce students to a highly interdisciplinary methodology – developed within the RoboLaw Project –  to analyze those relevant issues.

The Winter School allows students to engage with this emerging area, while while becoming highly qualified to enter the market for consultancy services to businesses developing robotic products; undergo independent research in law and technology; understand the non-technological issues to take into account in the design and marketing of robotic products.