Isaac Sheidlower, a postdoctoral research associate at the CNTR, will be sharing their work titled “Rethinking Robot Ownership: Comparing Public, Corporate, and Private Ownership Models” at WeRobot 2026 in Berlin, Germany this week.  The conference takes place from April 23 through April 25. This paper was written alongside CNTR affiliates, Tomo Lazovich, Harini Suresh, and Serena Booth. WeRobot is a premier conference which focuses on legal, ethical, and political considerations regarding the future of robotics.

The paper examines three different ways consumer-facing robots may be distributed and owned:

• Private Ownership, in which individual households purchase, own, and maintain their own robots
• Corporate Ownership, in which firms retain ownership and provide access through subscriptions, rentals, or per-task fees
• Shared ownership, in which robots function as community resources or public goods accessed through institutions such as libraries, cooperatives, or community centers

Each model has a profound impact on who can access robots, how they are monetized, and legal and ethical implications when dealing with robot harm.

The research tackles pressing questions such as: 

• How can we ensure equitable access to and use of robots, especially as they become more capable of performing many different tasks?
• What infrastructural changes may need to take place to accommodate a wide distribution of robots?
• What research directions should be prioritized and invested in to enable robots that work well, and for a diverse population? 

For example, robots that are privately owned have ample time to personalize their behavior to their users and homes; whereas robots that are borrowed or rented, like in the corporate or shared model, may only be used for a specific task and for a short period of time. Determining how a robot should engage with and learn from users in each of those situations requires distinct and explicit research efforts.

At WeRobot, Isaac will discuss and present this work to fellow scientists, policymakers, business leaders, and lawyers. 
You can learn more at https://www.werobot2026.eu/