Who is responsible when an accident involves an AI-operated vehicle? Estonia is working on a law

A robot speaks to attendees at the Oberthur Technologies stand at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Paul Hanna - RTS110JB

The country which helped in creating Skype is working on a legislation which will grant robots and artificial intelligence (AI) legal status.

Estonia’s Economic Ministry is working on a legislation that would address the status of artificial intelligence in legal disputes. One of the proposals under consideration will create a term "robot-agent" - defined as something between a separate legal personality and an object that is someone else’s property.

Siim Sikkut, the official in charge of the government’s IT strategy, in an interview with Bloomberg, said, “If we seize this opportunity as a government, we could be one of the trailblazers.”

The legislation could help authorities determine who is responsible when an accident involves AI operated vehicles.

The Estonian government wishes to bring about the law in a couple of years. Sikkut said that he was not aware of any other government outside Estonia doing anything similar to this.

However, he acknowledged that there are various hurdles before this law could be enacted. “We need to get plenty of myths and stereotypes out of the way early on,” Sikkut said.

"Like that robots are taking over everything or that we’re going too far with computerisation. Of course, these questions need to be addressed with all new technologies.”