Not the Law's First Rodeo: Towards regulating trustworthy collaborative industrial embodied autonomous systems

Does the law stifle technology adoption? At the surface, it may appear to be that there is a regulatory gap and, therefore, such uncertainty can hinder the development and deployment of collaborative industrial embodied autonomous systems (Cobots). Cobots are a class of robots which, unlike other forms of industrial robots, have seemingly introduced new legal challenges due to the direct human-robot collaboration factor. In this paper, to shed light on the above, we investigate the gap in the applicability of the current legal frameworks to this technology from the UK and EU regulatory approaches. We argue that the current law is applicable in regulating this technology given the state of the art. We discuss implications for the regulation to enhance trust and responsible future adoption of Cobots.