1863, as per Fridman (1954: 233) and the fact that the term was coined in the Byrne v Boadle Barrel Case of 1863 (see Webb, 2007).
Elevator Pitch
A legal term coined in Liverpool, England, helps with the assignation of responsibility.
Justification
Unformed Thoughts
Webb (2007) links the rise of res ipsa loquitur to the development of "enterprise liability" (ibid.: 1068).
As a non-expert in the field, this still seems relevant to modern discussions about responsibility in "black boxes," or algorithms that "make decisions" following unintelligible "logical" sequences.
Casey (2019) speaks of "robot ipsa loquitur." It seems more a play on words than anything, as it means "let the robot speak for itself" and Casey insists on the utility of the many logs that "robots" keep. But still, from my limited understanding, it seems that res ipsa loquitur allows us to assign fault.
Part of the point of this story will be to show that:
debates about AI ethics can draw on the lengthy history of the Law,
modern technologies seem to complicate how responsibility is assigned, and
"research ethics" must include the idea of "responsible research and innovation" that means its technological innovators in industry are also subject to an analysis through the lens of reseach ethics. (Maybe this last point is how the story begins.)
Title
Res Ipsa Loquitur
Date or Period 📅
1863, as per Fridman (1954: 233) and the fact that the term was coined in the Byrne v Boadle Barrel Case of 1863 (see Webb, 2007).
Elevator Pitch
A legal term coined in Liverpool, England, helps with the assignation of responsibility.
Justification
Unformed Thoughts
Webb (2007) links the rise of res ipsa loquitur to the development of "enterprise liability" (ibid.: 1068).
As a non-expert in the field, this still seems relevant to modern discussions about responsibility in "black boxes," or algorithms that "make decisions" following unintelligible "logical" sequences.
Casey (2019) speaks of "robot ipsa loquitur." It seems more a play on words than anything, as it means "let the robot speak for itself" and Casey insists on the utility of the many logs that "robots" keep. But still, from my limited understanding, it seems that res ipsa loquitur allows us to assign fault.
Part of the point of this story will be to show that: