We will be offering two free live video streams on Saturday and Sunday.

Feed One will be the We Robot 2012 standard conference video streaming feed for web browsers.

Feed Two will be the We Robot 2012 conference video streaming feed optimized for mobile devices such as iPod, iPad, iPhones and the like.

Patrick O. Gudridge is Vice Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law.  Professor Gudridge received an A.B. from Harvard College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.  He served as a law clerk to Justice Mathew O. Tobriner of the California Supreme Court.  In 1977, he joined the University of Miami School of Law faculty and served as Associate Dean at the Law School from 1990 to 1994.  His teaching interests are diverse, including courses in federal jurisdiction, U.S. and Florida constitutional law, jurisprudence, business associations, torts, and agency.

Vice Dean Gudridge will deliver the Welcome Address on Saturday, April 21 at the 8:30am at We Robot 2012 at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida.

We’ve selected a slightly unusual way to organize the presentation of scholarly papers at the We Robot 2012 conference. For the single-paper presentations, rather than have paper authors present their own papers, we’ve chosen a group of distinguished discussants and asked them to do the presentation, and then to also offer an appreciation and critique of it. The author(s) will then reply to the discussant’s presentation before opening the floor to comments and questions. Moderators of panel discussions will organize the conversations on the panels they are leading.

Peter Asaro will be the Discussant for Josh Storrs Hall’s paper
 Machine Agency: a Philosophical and Technological Roadmap on Sunday, April 22^nd at the 8:30am at We Robot 2012
at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida.  Peter Asaro is Assistant Professor in the School of Media
Studies at The New School in New York, New York, and founding member
and co-director of the International Committee for Robot Arms
Control.  He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy, a Masters in Computer
Science, and a Masters in Philosophy from the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign.

A. Michael Froomkin will be the Discussant for Jason Millar & Ian Kerr’s paper Delegation, Relinquishment and Responsibility: The Prospect of Expert Robotson Sunday, April 22^nd at the 11:30am at We Robot 2012 at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida.  Professor Froomkin, the Laurie Silvers & Mitchel Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law, is the Chair of the We Robot 2012 Program Committee.  Professor Froomkin received his J.D. from Yale Law School and a M.Phil in History of International Relations from Cambridge University in England, which he obtained while on a Mellon Fellowship.  He is the founding editor of the online law review Jotwell, “The Journal of Things We Like (Lots)”.  Prior to teaching, Professor Froomkin practiced international arbitration law in the London office of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.  His writing and research interest include Internet governance, electronic democracy, and privacy.

Bernard H. Oxman will be the Moderator for the Panel Presentation on Military Robotics on Sunday, April 22^nd at the 3:15pm at We Robot 2012 at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida.  Professor Oxman is the Richard A. Hausler Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida.  He has a J.D. from Columbia Law School in New York, N.Y.  Professor Oxman is Co-Editor in Chief of the American Journal of International Law.  In 2003, he served as judge ad hoc of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.  Professor Oxman has recently been named judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice in a maritime delimitation case between Romania and Ukraine.  He is the only American Lawyer to ever be appointed to serve as judge ad hoc before both of these international tribunals.  Prior to teaching at the University of Miami School of Law, Professor Oxman was Assistant Legal Advisor for Oceans, Environment, and Scientific Affairs of the U.S. Department of States.

We’ve selected a slightly unusual way to organize the presentation of scholarly papers at the We Robot 2012 conference. For the single-paper presentations, rather than have paper authors present their own papers, we’ve chosen a group of distinguished discussants and asked them to do the presentation, and then to also offer an appreciation and critique of it.  The author(s) will then reply to the discussant’s presentation before opening the floor to comments and questions. Moderators of panel discussions will organize the conversations on the panels they are leading.

Annemarie Bridy will be the Discussant for Neil Richards & William Smart’s paper How Should the Law Think About Robots? on Saturday, April 21 at the 8:45am at We Robot 2012 at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida.  Professor Bridy is an Associate Professor at the University of Idaho College of Law.  Professor Bridy received her J.D. from the Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law, where she was a member of the Temple Law Review.  She also holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in English Literature from the University of California, Irvine.  She served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable William H. Yohn, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Honorable Dolores K. Sloviter of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  Her work focuses on Internet and intellectual property law, with specific attention to the impact of disruptive technologies on existing frameworks for the protection of intellectual property and the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

Mary Anne Franks will be the Discussant for Lisa Shay, Gregory Conti, Woodrow Hartzog, John Nelson, and Dominic Larkin’s paper Confronting Automated Law Enforcement on Saturday, April 21 at the 11:45am at We Robot 2012 at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida.  Professor Franks is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law.  Professor Franks received her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she also taught courses in social theory and philosophy.  She holds a doctorate and Masters in Modern Languages and Literature from Oxford University in England, which she attended on a Rhodes Scholarship.  Prior to coming to Miami, Professor Franks was a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School.

Samir Chopra will be the Discussant for F. Patrick Hubbard’s paper Regulation of Liability For Risks of Physical Injury From “Sophisticated Robots” on Saturday, April 21 at the 2:00pm at We Robot 2012 at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida.  Professor Chopra is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center and Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Brooklyn.  He has a Masters in Computer Science from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the City University of New York, Graduate School and University Center in New York.  Professor Chopra recently authored “A Legal Theory for Autonomous Artificial Agents”, University of Michigan Press, 2011.

Ryan Calo will moderate the panel presentation “Social Issues in Robotics” on Saturday, April 21 at the 3:30pm at We Robot 2012 at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida.  Mr. Calo is Director of Privacy and Robotics for The Center for Internet and Society, a public interest technology law and policy program at Stanford Law School.  Mr. Calo received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  He served as a law clerk to the Honorable R. Guy Cole Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.  Mr. Calo will join the law faculty at the University of Washington this summer.

Here’s a handy hyperlinked list of all the downloadable papers for this weekend’s We Robot 2012 conference.

Day One

• How Should the Law Think About Robots?
  Neil Richards & William Smart
• Confronting Automated Law Enforcement
  Lisa Shay, Gregory Conti, Woodrow Hartzog, John Nelson & Dominic Larkin
• Regulation of Liability For Risks of Physical Injury From “Sophisticated Robots”
  F. Patrick Hubbard
• Extending Legal Rights to Social Robots (Updated)
  Kate Darling
• Sex Robots and Roboticization of Consent
  Sinziana Gutiu
• Liar Liar Pants on Fire! Examining the Constitutionality of Enhanced Robo-Interrogation (Updated)
  Kristen Thomasen

Day Two

• Machine Agency: a Philosophical and Technological Roadmap
  Josh Storrs Hall
• Delegation, Relinquishment and Responsibility: The Prospect of Expert Robots
  Jason Millar & Ian Kerr
• Open Roboethics: Establishing an Online Community for Accelerated Policy and Design Change
  Ajung Moon, Ergun Calisgan, Fiorella Operto, Gianmarco Veruggio & H.F. Machiel Van der Loos
• When Machines Kill: Criminal Responsibility for International Crimes Committed by Lethal Autonomous Robots
  Oren Gross
• Asleep at the Switch? How Lethal Autonomous Robots Become a Force Multiplier of Military Necessity
  Ian Kerr & Katie Szilagyi
• The Intersection: The Rules of War and The Use of Unarmed, Remotely Operated, and Autonomous Robotics Systems Platform and Weapons… Some Cautions
  Richard O’Meara
• The Dehumanization of International Humanitarian Law: Independently Operating Weapon System and Modern Armed Conflict
  Markus Wagner

Warfare technology widens the human-technology gap in combat.  Human beings are becoming the weak link in the Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act Loop (OODA Loop) because of the increasing need to collect and process vast amounts of data.  The combat use of Lethal Autonomous Robots (LARs) is ushering in an era of de-humanized warfare, where human beings are less present in combat zones.  The tension between LAR autonomy and human accountability for war crimes raises legal, ethical, and policy concerns.  Professor Gross argues that current domestic and international criminal law is ill prepared to apportion human accountability in the event a LAR commits a war crime.  His paper proposes more effective methods for apportioning criminal responsibility in such situations.

Oren Gross will present When Machines Kill: Criminal Responsibility for International Crimes Committed by Lethal Autonomous Robots at the Military Robotics Panel Presentation on Sunday, April 22^nd at 3:15pm at We Robot 2012 at the University of Miami School of Law in Coral Gables, Florida.  Oren Gross is the Irving Younger Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, where he is also the Director of the Institute of International Legal & Security Studies.  He has a LL.M. and SJD from Harvard Law School and an LL.B. from Tel-Aviv University in Tel-Aviv, Israel.  Professor Gross is an internationally recognized expert in national security law, international law, and international trade.