Intelligent robots with perception, cognition, and manipulation are concurrently developing in various fields due to machine learning and deep learning. Considering the effect of Internet and information, robots that could not only perceive and interpret the objects but also make own decisions are expected to have a profound impact on the lives of individuals and societies. They are not supplied to the general public as much as smart phones or Internet yet, but many experts expect robots with moderate level of artificial intelligence to be commercially available in the near future. Therefore it is necessary to begin a discussion to arrange social systems in the respective fields including Criminal Law and Criminology by maximizing the benefits gained from future intelligent robots while minimizing the negative impacts.
The study has conducted an awareness survey on intelligent robot technology with a panel consists of both professionals and non-professional public. Participants received a questionnaire related to understanding and acceptance of technology as well as applicability within criminal policy. As a result, intelligent robots emerging in the future would have the judgmental skills, emotional skills, responsibilities, and positive usefulness. The panel, however, strongly disagreed with granting human rights to intelligent robots. Although the percentage of negative side was slightly higher than that of positive side about robots owning rights of independent decision-making, neither side was dominant. The panel also appeared to believe that only a limited number of cases involving user’s danger or public interest are allowed to have rights of independent decision-making.
Most participants in this study generally accepted intelligent robots in crime prevention purposes. Monitoring robots utilizing the drone, reconnaissance robots, and intelligent electronic anklets were more acceptable than medical robots and security robots. It is noteworthy that intelligent electronic anklets and security robots had relatively low application acceptance of related task officers. Furthermore, the most influential factors on the acceptance of intelligent robots for the crime prevention were reliability of the elements of the technology such as accuracy or speed and the positive awareness of the technology’s impact on society. Security and safety, in particular, showed low reliability among the technical elements of the intelligent robots, and strong concerns raised about privacy and the possibility of criminal abuse should be considered a priority to introduce a future intelligent robot technology in the criminal justice system. Additionally, social discussions about excessive use of robots, loss of humanity, potential control over human, ambiguity of responsibility, and lack of law regulation are requested.
The development of intelligent robot technology is expected to provide more useful and secure lives to mankind while resulting in a problematic situation that cannot be solved with existing law or legal theory. Opinions on the legal issues such as responsibility and subjectivity of rights, and whether these issues can be settled by present interpretation of the law and legal theory or not, are divergent since legal discussions are still at the early stages. Based on the current law, even if the behavior of intelligent robots made objectively realized elements of crime without the user’s awareness, the responsibility of producer or user cannot be simply denied by reason of “automatism” of the algorithm. Concluding as producer or user’s fault would only be possible by breaking attributed consequence between robot’s behavior and its consequence or considering an unplanned malfunction as user’s life risk factor.
Whether in positive or negative position of utilizing and granting legal personality to intelligent robots, there seems to be no disagreement that it would be impossible to perfectly plan and control the danger associated with them. Smarter and better the robots are, easier the robots are to escape the plans of the user which makes it difficult to ask legal responsibility for the individual structural effect and errors in the program to the associated persons, such as developers or users. There may also be difficulties of attributing liability within substantive law and proving causal relationship within adjective law. These difficulties will also occur in relation to criminal liability as well as civil liability. As the level of intelligent robot technology develops, the discussion about whether the strict dichotomy between human and robots can ultimately be held or not, and how it will act in today’s social initiatives should be continued.
However, preparation plan by legal system related to unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and autonomous vehicle to be commercialized or utilized in a particular area needs to be sought quickly. It is also necessary to take complementary measures of legal system for development and find a new legal theory and a solution abided by conventional legal theory. Legal basis to allow autonomous vehicle on public roads must be provided and whether or not to apply current liability structure to the traffic accidents caused by autonomous vehicle should also be discussed. In case of complete autonomous vehicle that recognizes and determines the circumstance and controls the vehicle itself, new legal system is required since the driver is identified as vehicle, not man. Regulations defined to ensure the privacy and the safety from the risk of hacking followed by driving autonomous vehicle and changes in auto insurance are also possibly expected issues.
Speaking of UAV, it is necessary to establish the criteria and classification system for the exact regulation on the relative terms such as weight, operating range, and speed. Regulations on the certification standards, communication, airspace control, equipment, paperwork, qualifications and training of aviation personnel should also be provided. UAV and manned aircraft should share equally divided security levels, and they need to ensure the operations within State Safety Program. As specific regulations are requested for the privacy, collecting and managing personal information and maintaining separate penalties for the unauthorized collection and commercial use are necessary. Furthermore, there needs to be the way to organize insurance system in case of difficulty to resolve a legal dispute by the current law.
On the other hand, we could find the utilization plan within criminal policy based on the awareness of both general public and professionals on the technology of intelligent robots. For instance, robots gone into patrol duty may increase the efficiency while securing that manpower previously in the duty to be arranged in other places. Intelligent robots are also available to identify criminal factors by analyzing Big Data. It could contribute to crime prevention by establishing necessary police personnel and concrete countermeasures in advance in accordance with predicted criminal aspects.
In the criminal investigation stage, small drones may be applicable to track the offenders and investigation support robots can be implemented by finding clues through various sensors, predicting the post-action and escape direction of the offender with Big Data, and accurately calculating causal relationships with precise physics engine. In addition, service robots assisting questioning process will possibly be able to obtain more information by detecting and recording the nonverbal expression of defendant’s statement.
Patrol robots and inmate treatment robots may be introduced within correctional stage. The first attempt to take advantage of the robot technology in the correctional stage went to failure due to the rushed development and introduction, but considering the speed of technical development and characteristics of exhausting correctional duties, new form of intelligent robots is expected to be utilized as monitoring system in prison.
Additionally, robots equipped with a simultaneous interpretation for foreign prisoner’s language barrier problem may serve as inmate treatment robots, and intelligent robots like Watson are expected to carry out teleconference care system and support the duties of doctors and nurses in the correctional facilities more efficiently.
Probation supports reintegration and rehabilitation of the offenders and has more human rights-friendly aspects compared to the custody of the correctional facilities. Introduction of intelligent robots in this context can be most actively sought in the probation stage than any other stages of criminal proceedings. Currently the Ministry of Justice is promoting the intelligent electronic anklet development projects that can recognize and manage the anomalies. uations on human rights, privacy issues, and perfection of technology should all be made multilaterally. Utilizing probational drones equipped with voice or face recognition function may be considered positive for being more friendly to the human rights protection of the offenders with electronic anklets than the face-to-face confirmation by the probation officers. However, it needs to provide technical device for the privacy and information protection by ensuring that each function works according to the situation, with separate real-time monitoring and recording system.
In order to actualize the introduction of criminal law of robots, their role, status, and function need to be legislated. Granting the power to robots to arrest human is unlikely to get social consensus from today's philosophical point of view. If intelligent robots are philosophically acknowledged to own certain character or capacity, it may be possible to grant permission and authority for the arrest. Considering the level of the current technology, robots can be classified as assist device performing the duties of police officers or correctional personnel. Then it is necessary to amend provisions of the law related to police administrative law, execution of the sentence, and inmate treatment. When there is a conflict between command of the unlawful officer and the lawful duties, or between the purpose of crime prevention and fundamental rights of the others, it may be rather a question of political decision or choice of how much autonomy and function to grant to robots. Post justification or exemption may be reviewed for the choice of the one in emergency on the moral dilemmas, but the judgment of the intelligent robots should have confirmed to preselect the judgment algorithm while taking the circumstances into account. In order to carry out policy decisions and rational choices here above, a democratic discussion capable of forming a consensus of civil society should precede by priority.
Regardless of the area, the problem that can occur most frequently associated with the intelligent robot is a potential abuse and collection of personal information obtained through sensors. Therefore, a system for post-processing of personal information in addition to a legal basis for obtaining information by video or voice needs to be prepared.
Frequency of the citizens’ privacy exposure has already reached a substantial level due to CCTV or vehicle black boxes. As secret personal history and information are often open to public through social network services (SNS), the boundaries of secret is now fairly ambiguous. Even so, violation of the secret to privacy by public authorities should be minimized. And because it is technically impossible to record a specific point or case from a wide viewing angle through various sensors, it may be substantially difficult to set a certain limit in collecting the information. Therefore, protecting the information already collected within the post-processing area should be established more strictly.
As opposed to robotic technology research and development being conducted aggressively, research on potential legal issues is still insignificant. Preemptive discussion of positive and negative effects of intelligent robots on our lives is necessary in a variety of applications. Stanford University’s “One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI 100)” is in progress to derive a variety of issues involving legal system and put expected changes into perspective in the next 100 years. A long-term study of AI would have to continue as AI research is still evolving, and so are both legal and social problems caused by it. More active discussions of intelligent robots and their problems are expected so that cultural lag phenomenon that fears technology ahead of time could be overcome.