On April 8-9, 2013, Professor Ian Kerr and third-year common law student Diana Marina Cooper participated in the second annual robotics and the law conference: “We Robot: Getting Down to Business”, held at Stanford Law School. The conference examined the immediate and commercial prospects of robotics, including topics such as intellectual property, tort liability, legal ethics, and privacy by design.
Prof. Kerr, a pioneer in the field of law and robotics, was a co-organizer of the conference and led a panel discussion on “Designing Values,” which focused on the incorporation of ethics and privacy into the design of robots.
Commenting on her research, Prof. Kerr stated: “Diana’s paper got a lot of traction at Stanford, with some of her ideas quoted by major media outlets covering the event. This is a real opportunity not only to see how policy is influenced by research but also to make a substantive, ethical impact on the way that we deploy robots moving forward. It is a truly remarkable achievement and I am very proud of Diana and our university.”
“Working with Ian this past year made for a great ending to my law school chapter,” adds Diana. “He was an inspirational mentor. Throughout the project, he was very supportive and engaged in my research interests. I am very happy that he encouraged me to submit my paper to the We, Robot conference. It was great to see academia in action and demystify what professors do when they're not teaching."