AIpology: when saying sorry is the hardest string to compute
B Schäfer · Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG eBooks · 2025
Apologies play an important role in trust recovery in post-conflict scenarios. As we increasingly interact with autonomous systems, HCI researchers too have discovered the power of apologies for situations where AIs or robots violated justified expectations of the humans they interact with. But are AIs the type of entity that can meaningfully apologise? Drawing on conceptions of apologies across a range of legal field, the chapter identifies requirements for robot-generated apologies that ensure not only their ethically sound deployment, but also, potentially, their recognition in law.