The Digital Era 3

1From Connected Objects to Robots

Connected objects and robots are taking over entire sections of human activity both in professional and private life. Even agriculture, which for a long time embodied the close and direct relationship between man and nature, the sanctuary of human activity, is affected by digital technology: virtual fences, herbometers¹, connected seeders and agricultural robots are evidence of the transformation of agriculture. Will man soon be removed from field work and livestock breeding?

Robots and connected objects are spreading everywhere: some employees, for example, wear shoes that spy on them in order to “preserve their health” and to geo-track them in case of an accident. Customs robots scan travelers in airports: Thales has designed a robot that scans the passports of air travelers and verifies their identity by biometric face recognition. This robot then prints the boarding pass, without any further human intervention²! All these objects are intended, we are told, to transform reality. Their capabilities raise many questions: will the smart car be controllable by humans, and to what extent and with what degree of autonomy? In the case of failure of a robot, who would be responsible for its malfunction: its owner, the operator of the technology or its user? Another question is closely linked to their legal qualification: a parliamentary resolution from February 16, 2017, called on the European Commission to propose “the creation [...] of a specific ...