MEPs to vote on EU robot rules next week
Members of the European Parliament will be voting next Wednesday (15 February) on the new European Union report on rules and laws to regulate the use of robots. As previously reported by Post&Parcel, the robot – authored by Mady Delvaux, a Luxembourg member of the S&D group – looks at the civil use of robots, such as drones, medical equipment and home robots. It also calls on the European Commission to produce a legislative proposal to deal with issues such as who should be liable if someone gets hurt due to robots.
Yesterday (8 February), the European Parliament held a press seminar on the subject, which was attended by robot “guests of honour” and Delvaux.
According to a report on the EP website, most of the questions at the seminar focused on privacy issues, the risk or robots creating more unemployment, robots’ legal rights and the possibility of the technology being misused.
Delvaux told the seminar participants: “We see that technology is developing very fast. Robots are already on the market that is why we are calling on the European Commission for regulation on the topic.”
She said that the use of robots would lead to a shift in the employment market and that support was needed for lifelong learning programmes to ensure people are prepared. “This legislation is to make the life better life for humans, not robots,” she added.
