The conclusion of contracts by software agents in the eyes of the law

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The conclusion of contracts by software agents in the eyes of the law

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International Conference on Autonomous Agents archive
Proceedings of the 7th international joint conference on Autonomous agents and multiagent systems - Volume 2 table of contents

Estoril, Portugal

SESSION: Agent societies and societal issues table of contents

Pages 771-778

Year of Publication: 2008

ISBN:978-0-9817381-1-6

Authors

Tina Balke	University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
Torsten Eymann	University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

Sponsors

AAAI : Association for the Advancement of Artifical Intelligence
ACM: Association for Computing Machinery

Publisher

International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems Richland, SC

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ABSTRACT

Faced with the ongoing evolution of software agents from mere passive tools to e-tailers acting autonomously for their human owners (principals), new legal challenges appear on the agenda. One of them is the question, whether the traditional law of agency that regulates the legal issues arising from human agents constituting legal relations between their principal and a third party, is applicable for software agents as well.

Based on the characteristics of software agents this paper examines approaches for a legal classification of software agents and thereby analyzes current legislation that deal with the conclusion of contracts by software agents. Finally, this paper addresses remaining legal questions and discusses proposed solutions.

REFERENCES

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