Argues that treating people and artificial intelligence differently under the law results in unexpected and harmful outcomes for social welfare.

The increasing use of artificial intelligence within the workplace is likely to cause significant disruption to the labour market and in turn, to the economy, due to a reduction in the number of taxable workers. In this innovative book, Xavier Oberson proposes taxing robots as a possible solution to the anticipated problem of declining tax revenues.

We are standing on the threshold of the robotic era, the fourth industrial revolution. The undeniable impact and consequences of robotics are already raising economic concerns, such as the loss of income tax revenue as robots gradually replace human workers, as well as legal doubts regarding the possible taxation of robots or their owners. Financial law must adapt to this new reality by answering several crucial questions. Should robots pay taxes? Can they? Do they have the ability to pay? Can they be considered entrepreneurs for VAT purposes? These are just some of the many issues that Dr. Álvaro Falcón Pulido lucidly and insightfully addresses in this fascinating new monographic work, which includes an exhaustive bibliography on the subject.

""The increasing use of artificial intelligence within the workplace is likely to cause significant disruption to the labour market and in turn, to the economy, due to a reduction in the number of taxable workers. In this innovative book, Xavier Oberson proposes taxing robots as a possible solution to the anticipated problem of declining tax revenues. In accordance with guiding legal and economic principles, the book explores the various tax models that could be applied to both the use of robots, such as a usage or automation tax, and to robots directly. Numerous associated issues are discussed, such as the definition of robots for tax purposes, the difficulty of granting a tax capacity to robots, as well as the compatibility of robot taxes with international tax rules. The author concludes by putting forward a possible system for the taxation of robots, taking all of these issues into consideration. Being the first work of its kind to explore the potential for taxing robots in detail, this book will be a unique resource for researchers in the fields of law and economics who have an interest in the impact of artificial intelligence. Lawyers and tax professionals can also benefit from Oberson's insights on what future models of taxation may look like and what the legal consequences may be"-- Page four of cover.

Like the Internet before it, robotics is a socially and economically transformative technology. Robot Law explores how the increasing sophistication of robots and their widespread deployment into hospitals, public spaces, and battlefields requires rethinking of a wide variety of philosophical and public policy issues, including how this technology interacts with existing legal regimes, and thus may inspire changes in policy and in law. This volume collects the efforts of a diverse group of scholars who each, in their own way, has worked to overcome barriers in order to facilitate necessary and timely discussions of a technology in its infancy. Identifying controversial legal, ethical, and philosophical problems, the authors reveal how issues surrounding robotics and regulation are more complicated than engineers could have anticipated, and just how much definitional and applied work remains to be done. This groundbreaking examination of a brand-new reality will be of interest and of use to a variety of groups as the authors include engineers, ethicists, lawyers, roboticists, philosophers, and serving military.

Prominent experts from science and the humanities explore issues in robot ethics that range from sex to war. Robots today serve in many roles, from entertainer to educator to executioner. As robotics technology advances, ethical concerns become more pressing: Should robots be programmed to follow a code of ethics, if this is even possible? Are there risks in forming emotional bonds with robots? How might society—and ethics—change with robotics? This volume is the first book to bring together prominent scholars and experts from both science and the humanities to explore these and other questions in this emerging field. Starting with an overview of the issues and relevant ethical theories, the topics flow naturally from the possibility of programming robot ethics to the ethical use of military robots in war to legal and policy questions, including liability and privacy concerns. The contributors then turn to human-robot emotional relationships, examining the ethical implications of robots as sexual partners, caregivers, and servants. Finally, they explore the possibility that robots, whether biological-computational hybrids or pure machines, should be given rights or moral consideration. Ethics is often slow to catch up with technological developments. This authoritative and accessible volume fills a gap in both scholarly literature and policy discussion, offering an impressive collection of expert analyses of the most crucial topics in this increasingly important field.

In this compelling book, Hans Moravec predicts that machines will attain human levels of intelligence by the year 2040, and that by 2050, they will surpass us. But even though Moravec predicts the end of the domination by human beings, his is not a bleak vision. Far from railing against a future in which machines rule the world, Moravec embraces it, taking the startling view that intelligent robots will actually be our evolutionary heirs. "Intelligent machines, which will grow from us, learn our skills, and share our goals and values, can be viewed as children of our minds." And since they are our children, we will want them to outdistance us. In fact, in a bid for immortality, many of our descendants will choose to transform into "ex humans," as they upload themselves into advanced computers. This provocative new book, the highly anticipated follow-up to his bestselling volume Mind Children, charts the trajectory of robotics in breathtaking detail. A must read for artificial intelligence, technology, and computer enthusiasts, Moravec's freewheeling but informed speculations present a future far different than we ever dared imagine.