Oscar the Trash Loving Robot and His Groceries

Interesting article in Slate today about the need to rework our infrastructure in order to accommodate automated cars and other robots, including a trash collector named Oscar. Fred Swain, the author, suggests that AI will allow consumers to return to their original interactions with grocery stores: We provide a list of our groceries, and the AI grocer will collect and deliver them for us. This will be assisted by the further deployment of QR codes , which permit automated robots to process data from their surroundings, including jars of peanut butter and almond butter.

Assuming that this return to grocers is accomplished, we’ll have to sort through some tricky issues of liability. Let’s say a shopper with a nasty peanut allergy request s almond butter but receives peanut butter, which later causes an allergic reaction that requires hospitalization. Is the robot or its programmer liable? What about the company that labeled the peanut butter and almond butter jars with QR codes? The more intimately AI is involved in our lives – dietary protection v. trash collection – the more important these liability issues become.