What will it be like to admit Artificial Companions into our society? How will they change our relations with each other? How important will they be in the emotional and practical lives of their owners since we know that people became emotionally dependent even on simple devices like the Tamagotchi? How much social life might they have in contacting each other? The contributors to this book discuss the possibility and desirability of some form of long-term computer Companions now being a certainty in the coming years. It is a good moment to consider, from a set of wide interdisciplinary perspectives, both how we shall construct them technically as well as their personal philosophical and social consequences. By Companions we mean conversationalists or confidants not robots but rather computer software agents whose function will be to get to know their owners over a long period. Those may well be elderly or lonely, and the contributions in the book focus not only on assistance via the internet (contacts, travel, doctors etc.) but also on providing company and Companionship, by offering aspects of real personalization."

What will it be like to admit Artificial Companions into our society? How will they change our relations with each other? How important will they be in the emotional and practical lives of their owners – since we know that people became emotionally dependent even on simple devices like the Tamagotchi? How much social life might they have in contacting each other? The contributors to this book discuss the possibility and desirability of some form of long-term computer Companions now being a certainty in the coming years. It is a good moment to consider, from a set of wide interdisciplinary perspectives, both how we shall construct them technically as well as their personal philosophical and social consequences. By Companions we mean conversationalists or confidants – not robots – but rather computer software agents whose function will be to get to know their owners over a long period. Those may well be elderly or lonely, and the contributions in the book focus not only on assistance via the internet (contacts, travel, doctors etc.) but also on providing company and Companionship, by offering aspects of real personalization.

The present volume, Smart Technologies and Fundamental Rights, contains fourteen outstanding and challenging articles concerning fundamental rights and Artificial Intelligence at the intersection of law, ethics and smart technologies.

The current crisis in thinking the “human” raises questions not only about who or what may come after the human, but also about what happened before. What dark secrets lie in our ancestral past that may be stopping us from becoming human “otherwise”?

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Third International Conference on Human-Robot Personal Relationships, held in Leiden, The Netherlands, in June 2010. The 16 revised full papers presented together with 2 invited papers and 1 keynote lecture were carefully reviewed and selected from 22 submissions. The papers feature and discuss studies of personal relationships with artificial partners, their formation, their possibilities and their consequences. Such personal relationships are increasingly attracting attention from scientific fields as (social) robotics, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, psychology, philosophy, sociology.

The Law of the Future and the Future of Law is a unique collection of 'think pieces' in which a wide variety of experts share their thoughts on how they envision the future of law. By asking the question -What do you see as the most significant challenges for the development of the law? What developments are we likely to see in the coming two to three decades? What do those developments mean for national legal systems as a whole?- the Hague Institute for the Internationalisation of Law (HiiL) has canvassed the views of a large number of renowned experts in particular areas of law. This volume was prepared as part of the Law of the Future Joint Action Programme and as the basis of the Law of the Future Conference on 23 and 24 June 2011. The Law of the Future Joint Action Programme is based on the premise that prospective thinking about law is not only desirable but also required in order to ensure that law and legal systems do not become obsolete, ineffective or unjust. The aim is to set a world standard in thinking ahead, to guide decision makers today. For more information, visit www.lawofthefuture.org.