Robots were the guests of honour on February 8, at a press seminar on creating rules and laws to regulate their use. MEPs will vote on a report on this during next week's plenary. Report author Mady Delvaux, a Luxembourg member of the S&D group, also took the time to answer questions about it by followers of our Facebook page.
The report looks at the civil use of robots, such as drones, medical equipment and home robots. It 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. MEPs vote on it next Wednesday during the plenary session in Strasbourg.
Our Facebook followers enjoyed the opportunity to ask about the report during a live session with Delvaux. Most questions were about privacy issues, the risk or robots creating more unemployment, robots' legal rights and the possibility of the technology being misused.
“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,” said Delvaux. Regarding jobs, she said the use of robots would lead to a shift on the 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 said( Source: European Parliament)