Working Group on Law and IIA

The WoGLI - the Working Group on Law and Intelligent Information Agents (IIAs)- aims at studying the legal side of the usage of IIAs and the legal implications of human-agent and agent-agent interactions. The WoGLi is part a working group part of the AgentLink Special Interest Group on Intelligent Information Agents.

Recent years have seen an increasing deployment of IIAs for numerous network applications such as personalised information management, electronic commerce and management of commercial processes. As IIAs enter the information environment and electronic marketplaces, they engage in a number of activities which are significant for the law: accessing computer systems and networks, retrieving and spreading information, mediating personal and business relations, buying and selling material and immaterial goods. Through such activities IIAs originate relevant consequences concerning their users, owners and developers, as well as their counter-parties, consequences pertaining to different areas of the law, such as contracts, torts, criminal responsibility, intellectual property and data protection. How to legally conceptualise and regulate agent-based interactions is both a stimulating theme for lawyers and legal theorists, and a crucial issue for the success of agent-based applications and the secure development of the information society. The workshop aims at providing a forum for investigating the law of electronic agents, keeping into account the most recent advances in the study of autonomous agents and multi-agent systems, as well as the societal, economic and legal framework in which agent-based systems are employed. WoGLI is mainly interested in studying two types of scenarios involving IIAs: the Computer Supported Collaborative Work scenario. We foresee agents representing workers, which have to carry out some task while behaving formally in a correct way, following for instance the rules enforced in a given institution or society. The study of law applications in this kind of scenario represents a rather new approach to the topic and we claim that could bring to more practical design of agent-based system and applications. Recent work by some of the member of the potential WoGLI have published some work in this direction, bringing into discussion new topics in the scientific community at a very inter-disciplinary (computer science, applied logics, law improvement) level. Human-agent and agent-agent interactions are two mainstream research issues that have been particularly successful in the last few years. The contribution of WoGLI in this field aims at studying the relationship that can be established between both sides (humans and agents) from a legal perspective. The focus is on agent societies and how they become into existence and possibly develop, which type of relationship they build and how they keep on interacting, each trying to achieve his/her own goal. Examples are the conclusions of contracts, the exchange of goods and information and how services can be provided. These are cases we can find in our daily life, but still require study in order to be transferred in a virtual agent society. A more detailed list of topics we are investigating is the following:

Legal capacity and personality of agents

Legal relevance of mental states of agents (intention, negligence, etc.)

Ownership and other entitlements over agents

Agents as holders of rights, duties and powers

Agents as legal representatives

Agents as mediators in legal transactions

Agent-to-agent and agent-to-human interaction in a legal perspective

Contracts made through/by electronic agents (contractual liability)

Liability for the damage caused by electronic agents (liability in tort)

Agents and data protection

Agents and copyright/patent/know how infringement

Intellectual property rights over agent-based software

Agents and computer crimes

Agents as self-enforcing regulatory tools

Electronic agents and dispute resolution

Codes of conduct and best practices for agents