Industry 4.0 legal testbed - legally compliant negotiations between machines

Research in Germany has achieved a technological breakthrough for the use of artificial intelligence in production and logistics. Machines can now communicate and conclude contracts independently, but the legal framework is still unclear. The Industry 4.0 Legal Testbed was created to provide companies with a secure basis for investing in these technologies.

Project goals and research priorities

The Industry 4.0 Law Testbed, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK), investigated:

• The validity of contracts concluded between machines
• The legal protection of autonomous machine decisions
• The verifiability of autonomously provided services in production and logistics
• Liability issues in corporate and cross-border machine communication

The research project was dedicated to the complex legal issues surrounding the full automation of business processes. With the help of blockchain and smart contracts, questions relating to the legal capacity of machines, liability and responsibility were examined.

Use cases and methodology

The legal testbed served as a simulation environment to support agent development, especially for SMEs. The aim was to test the legal and IT security aspects of autonomous contract negotiations between machines.

Two Industry 4.0 use cases were analyzed in the testbed:

• Logistics use case: Autonomous systems organize the transport of goods across companies and borders.
• Production use case: Software agents control production processes independently.

The legal challenges were analyzed using simulations in order to develop recommendations for new legal standards.

Our services

Fraunhofer IML took on central tasks in the project to implement the legal testbed:

• Technological development and implementation of the digital infrastructure for the simulation of autonomous contract negotiations
• Integration of blockchain and smart contract technologies for the legally compliant execution of contracts between machines
• Development of use cases in the field of logistics and production to demonstrate practical applications
• Prototypical implementation and validation of the developed concepts in a secure test environment
• Creation of practical recommendations for companies on the implementation of legally compliant autonomous systems

The entire project was supported by the Industry 4.0 platform.

Results and added value

The project developed:

• Model clauses and contracts for automated negotiations
• Recommendations for companies to reduce legal risks
• Legal guidelines for digital platforms with autonomous contracting
• Support for SMEs in the development of their own software agents through templates and targeted evaluations

Partners and promotion

Partners involved:

• Fraunhofer IML
• Saarland University (Institute for Legal Informatics IFR)
• Horst Görtz Institute for IT Security (HGI)