ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the recent developments in the field of digitalization and artificial intelligence (AI), which make increasingly autonomous technology possible. Many developments and implementations of autonomous technology are ongoing, in fields such as industrial production, autonomous vehicles, and care robots. Robots have been familiar to humans for decades. Long before they were available technologically, robots played a central role in science fiction novels and movies. AI plays an important role here in enabling technologically autonomous systems to act adequately in complex environments, for example through real-time detection of relevant and sometimes rapidly changing framework conditions during active operation, or of the condition of the affected persons, for example in the case of variable dementia. Robots, taken as an illustration of any autonomous technology, can “autonomously” cause effects in the real world, for example by driving an autonomous car.
