# Embodied AI: Emerging Risks and Opportunities for Policy Action

## TL;DR

This paper reviews the rapid development of embodied AI, highlighting its benefits and risks, analyzing current policies, and proposing recommendations to ensure safe and beneficial deployment of these systems.

## Contribution

It provides a taxonomy of risks associated with embodied AI, assesses existing policies in major regions, and offers targeted policy recommendations for safer deployment.

## Key findings

- Existing policies are insufficient to address embodied AI risks
- A taxonomy of physical, informational, economic, and social risks is proposed
- Policy gaps identified in US, EU, and UK frameworks

## Abstract

The field of embodied AI (EAI) is rapidly advancing. Unlike virtual AI, EAI systems can exist in, learn from, reason about, and act in the physical world. With recent advances in AI models and hardware, EAI systems are becoming increasingly capable across wider operational domains. While EAI systems can offer many benefits, they also pose significant risks, including physical harm from malicious use, mass surveillance, as well as economic and societal disruption. These risks require urgent attention from policymakers, as existing policies governing industrial robots and autonomous vehicles are insufficient to address the full range of concerns EAI systems present. To help address this issue, this paper makes three contributions. First, we provide a taxonomy of the physical, informational, economic, and social risks EAI systems pose. Second, we analyze policies in the US, EU, and UK to assess how existing frameworks address these risks and to identify critical gaps. We conclude by offering policy recommendations for the safe and beneficial deployment of EAI systems, such as mandatory testing and certification schemes, clarified liability frameworks, and strategies to manage EAI's potentially transformative economic and societal impacts.