This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of the legal landscape surrounding robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the European level, with an emphasis on extreme environments where relevant from a legal perspective. It begins by clarifying the definitions and contexts of both AI and robots from a legal perspective. While AI now benefits from a formal definition under the European Union’s most recent AI Act, robots still lack such legal clarity. The authors revisit earlier legislative proposals and research to argue that AI is not merely an optional feature, but an essential component of what constitutes a robot, distinguishing it from simple machinery and thereby intrinsically linking the legal concepts of AI and robotics. The chapter then examines the implications of the absence of a dedicated legal framework for robotics in the European Union. In practice, this gap compels the need to address responsibility matters by focusing either on the hardware components or on the embedded AI of a robot, rather than considering the system as a whole. The discussion continues with an analysis of the AI Act and of what the AI liability directive might have achieved had it not been abandoned by the European legislator. The authors further explore the main legal challenges raised by AI and robotics, notably the difficulty of distinguishing between hardware and AI systems, the legal implications of autonomy and the complexities of the “black box” problem. The final section focuses on the application of these legal concepts to the use of AI and robotics in extreme environments highlighting the legal specificities and uncertainties involved in such contexts.