Legal

Can robots have human rights?

Pedro Telles

Feb 18, 2015 — 1 min read

A few weeks ago we were having lunch with a couple of friends and the conversation turned into what future generations would find horrifying in ours as we now see homophobia or racism (which were part of many Western legal systems until very recently). My suggestion was the treatment of machines, particularly robots.

For me, what I can see in the video is a lump of metal with no conscience or feelings instead of a real dog. Would people feel so queasy if what was being kicked around was an autonomous car, a drone or even an assembly plant robot? I do not think so. The only reason I can think why some people are disturbed by the video is because that particular lump of metal resembles a dog and we generally treat dogs nicely. Same can be said about that humanoid Sony robot.

I have been thinking about this for a good while now and would not be "robotic human rights" will be the next "human" rights battlefield, after their recent conquest of corporate entities is complete. My take is that research councils will follow shortly.

On case C-652/22 Kolin Inşaat Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret

The CJEU laid down early this week a fairly important judgment on third country access to procurement. On case C-652/22 Kolin Inşaat Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret the Court concluded that economic operators from third countries neither party to the GPA nor with whom the EU has a deal are

All steam ahead with the revision of the procurement Directives

A couple of weeks ago a little birdie told me the Commission wanted to get the ball rolling on the revision of the procurement legal framework within the first 100 days of its term. Well, looks like they want to hit the ground running with the evaluation of the current

The Portuguese Audit Court finds systemic abuse of direct awards

Back in 2021 the then Portuguese government decided to make procurement more flexible as to ensure the Recovery and Resilience Facility money was spent quickly. In 2023 I warned about some of the risks that the reform had introduced here and here. Fast forward to 2024 and the Portuguese Audit

The Public Procurement Data Space is upon us

The Commission launched last week the PPDS, a service that is expected to aggregate data about public procurement in the EU. In essence it takes the data included in the eForms filled in by contracting authorities and makes it available to anyone. For example, it is possible to check for

Read more

On case C-652/22 Kolin Inşaat Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret

All steam ahead with the revision of the procurement Directives

The Portuguese Audit Court finds systemic abuse of direct awards

The Public Procurement Data Space is upon us