Biography

Minoru Asada (Fʼ05) received the B.E., M.E., and Ph.D. degrees in control engineering from Osaka University, Suita, Japan, in 1977, 1979, and 1982, respectively. He became a Full Professor of Mechanical Engineering for Computer-Controlled Machinery with Osaka University, in 1995. Since 1997, he has been a Professor with the Department of Adaptive Machine Systems, Osaka University. Since 2017, he has been the Division Director of the Systems Intelligence, Open and Transdisciplinary Research Initiatives, Osaka University. He is a founder of RoboCup, and was the president of RoboCup Federation (2002-2008). He organized several international conferences including ICDL 2005, as a general chair. IEEE Fellow since 3005. Now, he is a vice president of Robotics Society of Japan.

Abstract

Legal being: How can artificial systems be qualified as legal personhoods in a future “NAJIMI” (symbiotic and harmonized) society?

Based on the study of autonomy of artificial intelligence (hereafter, AI), we, robotics researchers and jurists, propose a project that examines the ideal way of AI and law theory in NAJIMI society where AI and human beings harmonize (adapt with each other). In order to realize NAJIMI society, it is necessary for AI to establish an adaptive relationship with humans autonomously at various levels. It means that not only is AI merely used as a tool by humans, but also AI itself modifies its own behavioral rules through various kinds of relationship with humans. In this project, towards future symbiotic society where AI with autonomy to some extent is introduced, we reconsider philosophical conditions as the premise of existing law theories and value systems, and present a model of ideal AI by answering the following questions: (1) Can human beings conceive the autonomy of machine independent from the intention of the designer? (2) What is the autonomy of machines in the first place? Through our attempt, we present a consideration as to whether it is possible that an AI system is legally or morally autonomous in the field of AI and robotics, and at the same time, we show a new insight into how artificial systems could be admitted as personhoods which are legally liable and morally responsible for their own acts due to their autonomies.