Robotic Technologies and Fundamental Rights: Robotics Challenging the European Constitutional Framework

Robotic technologies―constructed systems that interact with their environment in a way that displays some level of agency―are increasingly intertwined with human life and human bodies. This raises many regulatory questions, since current legal frameworks have few robotics-specific provisions and robotics pose new challenges to legal notions and underlying assumptions. To help guide the regulation of robotics, fundamental rights should provide a basic touchstone. However, the constitutional framework of fundamental rights is itself not immune to being influenced by robotics. This paper discusses how the protection of fundamental rights is affected by robotics technologies, taking into account the mutual-shaping process of fundamental rights, regulation, and technology. After a general overview of how fundamental rights are challenged by robotics technologies, we zoom in on three specific application domains: industrial robotics and the issue of workers’ rights and liability, assistive technology with a focus on autonomy and privacy of elderly and disabled people, and biomedical robotics (including brain-machine interfaces) in relation to informed consent and self-determination. The analysis highlights diverse implications of robotics in light of fundamental rights and values, suggesting that regulators will have to deal with rights and value conflicts arising from robotics developments. To help address these conflicts, a set of shared norms, standards and guidelines could be developed that may, in the form of soft-law, serve as a bridge between abstract fundamental rights and concrete robotics practice. Robotic Technologies and Fundamental Rights: Robotics Challenging the European Constitutional Framework