A Tour of Adept Mobile Robots and Shifting Liability for Artificial Intelligence

Recently, a friend from high school, Luke Broyer, gave me a tour of Adept Mobile Robots in Amherst, New Hampshire. Mobile specializes in automated ground vehicles (AGVs) that perform a variety of functions in hospitals, factories, and consumer-interaction venues. To get an idea of the range of machines they build, check out the Seekur and the PeopleBot (which sounds like a Transformers derivative, but is actually a machine you might converse with soon). Mobile’s robots can do having lifting in a warehouse, hard labor outside, and also take your order for a burger or serve as a museum tour guide, all without direct control from a human being. If you haven’t interacted with on already, it’s only a matter of time before you encounter a Mobile product or something similar from another company.

As Luke showed me around the Mobile facilities, we started talking about liability issues associated with automated robots. Luke works on code for Mobile’s R&D and hasn’t read any of the indemnification or risk-assignment language in Mobile’s contracts, but I think it’s safe to assume that Mobile would like to pass along as much liability for damage and injuries associated with the AGVs it sells, as would any other company in Mobile’s position. Most liability issues can be settled contractually, and from what I understand about Mobile’s customer base, their contracts are likely concluded after fairly balanced negotiations.

However, I think that eventually: a) AI-driven robots will be ubiquitous in our lives; and b) Mobile or other manufacturers will become dominant producers of these machines. In an earlier post, I described a grocery store where customers give a robot their shopping lists and the robot retrieves all the items. Mobile already produces robots that make this interaction possible. The PeopleBot can roam the store interacting with customers, while the Seekur or similar machines can retrieve the groceries. Once these machines, or others like them, are cost efficient for stores, we’ll see them a lot more. And we might see them soon

One of the reasons AI-driven machines will become cost efficient is that one manufacturer (or more), maybe Mobile, will develop a production system that permits it to sell smart AI for a price that makes sense for large chains and smaller stores alike. That manufacturer will be in a strong position to dominate the market for AI-driven machines. I’m not concerned in this post with the contractual relationships between the AI manufacturer and the chain stores. Rather, I am more interested in the contractual relationships between the manufacturer and smaller stores

Large chains will have the economic clout (buying hundreds or thousands of AI-driven robots) to negotiate their contracts with the manufacturer. The owners of individual stores will not be able to negotiate in the same way. Those owners will have to rely on a contract of adhesion presented by the manufacturer. A contract of adhesion (basically, a standard form contract) will surely shift most if not all of the liability to the individual store owners.

Did the robot place peanut butter instead of almond butter into the basket of someone who is allergic to peanuts? Did the robot drive into a customer? Did the robot drop a heavy container on one of the human employees? By contract, all of that can be the responsibility of the store owner.

A contract of adhesion is not invalid, per se, but courts will look at them skeptically if they don’t pass the “sniff test.” The sniff test is exactly what it sounds like: If the contract looks crappy, it doesn’t pass the sniff test. This creates another layer of uncertainty for the injured party, the store owner, and the manufacturer. It represents a very thorny issue for the owners of individual stores, in particular, as they will have to assess the liability risk to their establishments with little historical data.

Mobile has a fantastically interesting line of AI-driven robots. The Seekur in particular is a wicked cool machine: the size of a dining room table, able to turn on a dime, and capable of extensive indoor and outdoor autonomous work. I hope Mobile is one of the manufacturers that gains a dominant market share; they’ve laid some strong ground work in this field. I also hope that their contracts adequately address liability for their customers and their customers’ customers.