European parliament calls for robot law, rejects robot tax

A man shakes hands with a humanoid robot during the International Conference on Humanoid Robots in Madrid November 19, 2014. REUTERS/Andrea Comas

FRANKFURT: European lawmakers called for EU-wide legislation to regulate the rise of robots, including an ethical framework for their development and deployment and the establishment of liability for the actions of robots including self-driving cars. 

But they rejected a proposal to impose a so-called robot tax on owners to fund support for or retraining of workers put out of a job by robots.