On April 2-4, 2020, the east coast edition was heading north to Canada, and was to be hosted by the Centre for Law, Technology and Society at the University of Ottawa. Due to COVID-19 and these extraordinary times, We Robot was postponed and was not held in person for 2020, but virtually on September 22-25, 2020.
Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are transformative technologies and our goal is to anticipate and plan for that transformation. WeRobot speakers included an interdisciplinary mix of scholars, policy-makers, regulators, and entrepreneurs who discussed the latest issues relating to robots and AI in the home, in hospitals, in public places and battlespaces. In each of these domains robots and AI disrupt existing legal regimes or require a rethinking of difficult policy issues.
WeRobot attendees include lawyers, policy makers, engineers, social scientists, philosophers, roboticists, ethicists, and regulators who are on the front lines of robot and AI theory, design, or development. They meet for exciting interdisciplinary conversations and debates that feature designers, developers, and those who deploy robots and AI, as well as the people who are influencing the legal and social structures in which they operate. WeRobot 2020 was to involve around 200 attendees and participants.
