Abstract: Incredible empirical reports have shown that some robots may be indicted as suspects and accomplices of cyber crimes. The fear now is that these new criminality issues can gradually degenerate to the level such that some robotic technologies would be stereotyped and unduly criticized in some settings. Ethical dilemmas may suddenly amplify and the continuous usage, investment, profitability and growth of the entire robotic engineering sector may gradually suffer decline if such issues are not properly clarified. However, considerations that should actually constitute the elements of such cyber crimes and how investigators can acquire and process useful criminal data from the crime scenes are still unknown across the globe. Consequently, the global society wants to know how detectives will arrest robots, transcribe their statements, interrogate and detain them(if the need arises) and how the criminal courts will adjudge allegations of cyber crimes against robots especially if the complainants are also robots. Furthermore, most people want to know how criminal courts will convict and order the convicted robots to be rehabilitated. This paper uses qualitative zoom interactions to widely gather the perspectives of 24 software engineers and 6 robotic solicitors on the above issues. Thematic analysis of their responses explicitly elucidates the above issues and the necessity to integrate the human and non-human elements of robotic technologies together in other to adjudge the above allegations. We further suggest possible eight crime scenes, criminal liability and punishment for robots that are guilty of cyber crime son the basis of 8 simple considerations that subsume rehabilitation, deterrence, retribution, permanent disability, interdiction, lien, security interest and conditional sale.

Robot, Cybercrime, criminal liability, robotic courts, robotic remand.