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Homewrecker 2.0: An Exploration of Liability for Heart Balm Torts Involving AI Humanoid Consorts

  • Conference paper
Social Robotics (ICSR 2011)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 7072))

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Abstract

With the development of artificially intelligent humanoid consorts, robotics is venturing into a realm of legal liability that has traditionally governed social interactions between humans and other humans, rather than interactions between humans and machines. How can and should legal systems deal with the problems that arise in regulated human interpersonal and sexual relationships when there is an AI sex doll in the mix? Heart balm torts, traditionally used to hold a third party paramour civilly liable for the dissolution of a protected relationship, provide a potential answer. Finding an appropriate entity to be liable will be problematic, though robot producers and the AI entity itself could both be potential defendants in a heart balm case. Producers may be able to limit liability if they can incorporate the experience of heartbreak and compassion into their creations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oxford University, Wolfson College, Oxford, UK

    Sonya Ziaja

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  1. Sonya Ziaja
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1210 W. Dayton St. Room 6381, 53706-1685, Madison, WI, USA

    Bilge Mutlu

  2. Canterbury University, HIT Lab NZ Old Math Building, Room 108, Private Bag 4800, 8140, Christchurch, New Zealand

    Christoph Bartneck

  3. Department of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology, Section Human-Technology Interaction, IPO 1.36, PO Box 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

    Jaap Ham

  4. Department of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, (EEMCS). Chair: Human Media Interaction (HMI), University of Twente, PO Box 217, NL-7500 AE, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Vanessa Evers

  5. Department of Communication, Laboratories Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International), 2-2-2 Hikaridai, 619-0288, Keihanna Science City, Kyoto, Japan

    Takayuki Kanda

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Ziaja, S. (2011). Homewrecker 2.0: An Exploration of Liability for Heart Balm Torts Involving AI Humanoid Consorts. In: Mutlu, B., Bartneck, C., Ham, J., Evers, V., Kanda, T. (eds) Social Robotics. ICSR 2011. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7072. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25504-5_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25504-5_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-25503-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-25504-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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