IBA Publish New Report On Law & AI: “Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Their Impact on the Workplace”

She added:‘The AI phenomenon is on an exponential curve, while legislation is doing its best on an incremental basis. New labour and employment legislation is urgently needed to keep pace with increased automation.’

Titled Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Their Impact on the Workplace, the 120-page comprehensive report focuses on potential future trends of AI, and the likely impact intelligent systems will have on: the labour market, the structures of companies, employees’ working time, remuneration and the working environment. In addition to illustrating the thread and importance of law in relation to these areas, the GEI report assesses the law at different points in the automation cycle – from the developmental stage, when computerisation of an industry begins, to what workers may experience as AI becomes more prevalent, through to issues of responsibility when things go wrong. These components are not examined in isolation, but in the context of economics, business and social environment.

In the example of the automotive industry, the report identifies competitive disadvantage between Europe and the United States in the developmental stage of autonomous driving. Germany and the US are recognised as the market leaders in this area. However, in contrast to the US, European laws prevent autonomous driving on public roads, though there are some exceptions for research vehicles. US companies are not faced with the same restrictions; they are therefore able to develop at a faster pace and as a result are likely to bring products to market sooner than their European competitors. Europe’s restrictive older regulations impede technical progress of autonomous driving for companies operating within its borders, potentially placing them at a disadvantage in the marketplace.

Since motor vehicles will be driven by fully automated systems in the future, it is conceivable that jobs such as truck, taxi or forklift drivers will be eliminated in the long run. The report states there is a 90 per cent likelihood of this happening, with developers of connected trucks stating: ‘technical changes that will take place in the next ten years will be more dramatic than the technical advancements over the last 50 or 60 years’. The report points to cost savings of up to 28 per cent as logistics become cheaper, more reliable and more flexible. At the fully automated stage, costs will be further reduced as the requirement for rest breaks is eliminated, illness or inebriation is no longer a risk factor, and accidents are minimised.

Nevertheless, the report examines the issue of liability when failure does occur, concluding that: ‘The liability issues may become an insurmountable obstacle to the introduction of fully automated driving.’ Currently, in most cases driver responsibility is assumed, with the manufacturer liable only for product defects, and vehicle owners subject to special owner’s liability, particularly in European countries. However, if a vehicle is fully automated, with a human driver no longer actively steering, the question arises as to whether damage can still be attributed to the driver or the owner of the car, or whether only the manufacturer of the system can be held liable.

The report’s authors examine whether rules applicable to other automated areas, such as aviation, can be applied, but reason that: ‘it is not possible to apply the liability rules from other automated areas to automated driving’, and that international liability standards with clear rules are needed.

Pascale Lagesse, Co-Chair of the IBA GEI, commented: ‘Without doubt AI, robotics and increased automation will bring about changes in society at every level, in every sector and in every nation. This fourth industrial revolution will concurrently destroy and create jobs and paradoxically benefit and impair workers in ways that are not entirely clear or not yet imagined. What is evident, however, is that a monumental paradigm shift is occurring and that concurrent legal uncertainties need to be addressed within labour and employment laws geared to the technological developments.’

She added:‘Greater governmental collaboration across borders may be necessary if commerce is to thrive. States as lawmakers will have to be bold in decision, determining what jobs should be performed exclusively by humans, for example: caring for babies; perhaps introducing human quotas in different sectors; taxing companies where machines are used; and maybe introducing a “made by humans” label for consumer choice. Our new report posits these ideas and more, and could not be more timely.’

ENDS

Notes to the Editor

1. The report was prepared by:
   • Dr Gerlind Wisskirchen;
   • Blandine Thibaut Biacabe;
   • Ulrich Bormann;
   • Beatrice von Brauchitsch;
   • Annemarie Muntz;
   • Gunda Niehaus; and
   • Guillermo Jimenez Soler.

1. The International Bar Association Global Employment Institute (IBA GEI) was formed in early 2010 for the purpose of developing a global and strategic approach to the main legal issues in the human resources and human capital fields for multinationals and worldwide institutions. For more information, click here or paste the following link into your browser: tinyurl.com/3bnkjl4

1. The full report, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and Their Impact on the Workplace, can be downloaded without charge from the IBA website at: tinyurl.com/mnes43h

1. The International Bar Association (IBA), established in 1947, is the world’s leading organisation of international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies. Through its global membership of individual lawyers, law firms, bar associations and law societies it influences the development of international law reform and shapes the future of the legal profession throughout the world.

   The IBA’s administrative office is in London, United Kingdom. Regional offices are located in: São Paulo, Brazil; Seoul, South Korea; and Washington DC, United States, while the International Bar Association’s International Criminal Court and International Criminal Law Programme (ICC & ICL) is managed from an office in The Hague, the Netherlands.

   The International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI), an autonomous and financially independent entity, works to promote, protect and enforce human rights under a just rule of law, and to preserve the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession worldwide.