Regulation of Interaction of an Individual with Autonomous Technical Devices: Legal Regimes Discussion

The article is devoted to the study of legal approaches to the regulation of social relations associated with human interaction with technical devices (physical and virtual entities) capable of making decisions independently of the individual. The authors rely on the fact that technical means acquire the sign of autonomy only when they are under the control of an artificial cognitive system (artificial intelligence). It is shown that autonomous technical devices differ qualitatively from traditional objects of law (of material and intangible nature) due to their ability to perform legally significant actions independently of the will of the human. The thesis is put forward that human interaction with technical means should be considered in the following ways: interconnection (the actions of the object are under human control), coexistence (the actions of the object go beyond the will of the human) and merging (the actions of the object are under human control, but the object is implanted in a human being and is a part of him). It is concluded that at present legal regulation of human interaction with autonomous technical devicess is developing depending on the scope of their application and type of technologies. The authors propose an alternative approach representing the regulation of such social relations through the prism of legal models correlated with the ways of human interaction with technical devices (interconnection, coexistence and merging). This approach has made it possible to put forward and justify the idea that legal regimes for interconnection, coexistence and merging would be desirable in order to create sustainable and balanced regulation that provides for special ways of regulating legal relations and the use of a special set of legal means.

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