Special Session 33

SPECIAL SESSION #33

Veronica Scotti

Politecnico di Milano Italy

• veronica.scotti@gmail.com

Viola Schiaffonati

Politecnico di Milano Italy

• viola.schiaffonati@polimi.it

The binomial law and ethics is frequently associated with technical evolution especially when AI and its increasing diffusion is concerned. In order to prevent designers and manufacturers from being unfairly involved in ethical conflicts or lawsuits claiming their liability, a new legal framework is going to be established aiming at defining responsibility of various subjects at different levels, including AI.

The scenario is quite complex because AI may be considered both as a simple machine not specifically regulated or as a (legal) person which would be endowed with a legal personhood according to the intended purpose of allowing compensations in case of damages deriving from AI. This approach might be restrictive regardless of other concerns that may arise referring to rights that should be regulated (and granted) to AI which has already demonstrated its ability in creating ideas, inventions and even artwork.

Moreover the other debated aspect is related to ethical implications referred to AI design, manufacture, use and “abuse” especially when AI is an anthropomorphic artefact, such as an android, which may persuade people to consider it as human apparently able to feel and convey emotions.

The field is extremely wide thus different competences are needed to explore possible solutions suitable for a future peaceful coexistence with new persons.

Considering the increasing interest for AI in order to establish a set of rules, the scope of this session includes but it is not limited to:

• Liability related to AI’s performance and use
• AI and Evolution of legal framework
• Copyright and patent deriving from AI
• Ethical design of AI
• Innovation and ethics
• Ethical and legal implications of machine learning

Veronica Scotti is a lawyer in Milan and, since 2007, she has been a contract professor in the legal implications of engineer–professional liability at Politecnico di Milano. Her practice focuses on commercial contracts, energy provision contracts, engineering and metrology. Her research interests are related to the analysis of the relationship between measurement activities and metrology and the regulation field, with particular regard to the legal implications of incorrect specification of measurement uncertainty. The results of her research activity have been published in more than 30 papers in journals and conference proceedings and she is coauthor with Prof Alessandro Ferrero of book "Forensic Metrology" published by Springer in 2022. She is responsible for columns on legal metrology in the journal of the Italian Association of Electrical and Electronic Measurements (GMEE) and IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. She is member of American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS).

Viola Schiaffonati is associate professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria. She holds a PhD in Philosophy of Science from Università di Genova. She has been visiting scholar at the Department of Philosophy of the University of California at Berkeley and visiting researcher at the Suppes Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Science and Technology of the Stanford University.
Viola Schiaffonati is Director of the CINI National Laboratory on Informatics & Society (IeS), Editor-in-Chief of Mondo Digitale, a magazine published by AICA (Italian Association of Computing), and Associate Editor of the journal Science and Engineering Ethics. Her research interests are in the philosophy of AI and robotics, the epistemology and methodology of experiments in computer engineering and autonomous robotics, the ethical issues of intelligent and autonomous systems.