As technology evolves, it frequently faces a fork in the road, a choice between becoming open or closed. We’re used to this choice with software. There are shades of grey with software licenses, but to me, if I can access the source code, modify it, rebuild it, then pitch the whole thing back into the public pile, that’s open.

Art can be open or closed. Most of the books you read are protected by copyright. Some have moved into the public domain. A recent lawsuit moved the characters Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson into the public domain.

Leslie Klinger, a Sherlock Holmes expert, had sued the Conan Doyle Estate Ltd. in February 2013, claiming that it has no copyright on the Holmes and Watson characters or the world of Baker Street, as the key elements of that fictional world, including 46 of the 56 Sherlock Holmes stories, are in the public domain.

The choice to be open or closed is becoming a critical issue in the world of robotics. A great deal of excellent work is being done using open source platforms such as the Arduino microcontroller. A universe of open source software has emerged based on the Arduino. Other computers used in robotics or in computer science have emerged. Some are not open hardware (manufacturing is done under license), but support an open source community of operating systems and software.

On the flip side are robotics efforts by the military, or by corporations like Sony (The AIBO mechanical pet) or iRobot (The Roomba vacuum robot). Their efforts are clearly either secure or closed (at least they started that way).

As was the case for software and for the arts, a strong case can be made for opening up robotics, as much as possible. This article does a good job on laying all this out.

The trouble with open platforms is that they open the manufacturer to a universe of potential lawsuits. If a robot is built to do anything, it can do something bad. If it can run any software, it can run buggy or malicious software. The next killer app could, well, kill someone.

Liability in a closed world is fairly straightforward. A Roomba is supposed to do one thing and do it safely. Say a Roomba causes an injury in the course of vacuuming the floor. Then iRobot generally will be held liable as it built the hardware and wrote or licensed the software. If someone hacks the Roomba and uses it to reenact the video game Frogger on the streets of Austin, Texas (this really happened), or used the Roomba for a baby rodeo (it’s a thing), then iRobot can argue product misuse.

In some sense, there’s a battle between liability and the evolution of robotics. There’s also the battle between education and profits. This is a critical time. Robotics is still in its infancy, but its character is being formed. Interesting stuff. Lots to think about here.