A drunk man in Japan was arrested for kicking a humanoid robot that was stationed as a greeter at a SoftBank store. The man was angry at the attitude of one of the store clerks. The “Pepper robot” now moves more slowly, and its internal computer system may have been damaged. Whether a robot can be legally “injured” or not is debatable, and raises the question of what exactly robot laws should look like. Weng has proposed 2 special regulations for robots. First, a “Humanoid Morality Act” would define a proper relationship between humans and robots, including the use of coercive power to constrain unethical applications. Second, a “Robot Safety Governance Act” would extend current machine safety regulations to protect the safety of both humans and robots.

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