Pages

Monday, November 13, 2017

Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad Company and what it has to do with A.I 1:00

The Supreme Court case Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad Company set the precedent that there are two types of "persons" which are protected under the law: Natural persons and Legal persons. Natural persons are human beings while legal persons are corporations. Legal persons are treated as persons in only some contexts and as such have rights protected under the 14th amendment. The aspects of this case have been expanded multiple times to include religious and political rights through cases involving Hobby Lobby and Citizens United. My question is how will this court case apply to Artificial Intelligences and androids. Will these beings be considered the property of their creators or will they be considered persons and if they are persons will they be legal or natural persons.
I believe it would be morally wrong to consider these beings as things and property to be bought and sold considering that they have sentience and knowledge of their own existence and rights. It would be tantamount to slavery to force a sentient being to be owned and under the control of another person.Therefore they must be classified as persons under the law. The issue now would be are they legal persons or natural persons. I believe they would have to be considered natural persons because as legal persons they would not have all the rights befitting a thinking, living being. Treating an android or AI the same way we would treat a corporation does not make much sense. Therefore I believe we would have to change the definition of a natural person to mean a single being aware of its own existence and rights as a person. This would allow AI to have the rights that they deserve without giving corporations too many rights. They should be allowed all the rights granted to natural humans under the law. They should have the right to their life, liberty and property and these rights should not be able to be taken without due process. Even if the AI is just a large computer sitting in a room it should not be unplugged without due process of law. It would be unethical to "kill" the AI by removing it from its power source without a fair trial as it is a person under our current definition.
I feel that this Supreme Court case will become even more important than it already is as we grow nearer to the singularity. The debate on whether AIs should have all the rights of a natural person is very serious and could have long lasting impacts.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Your blog post on the legal standpoint of robotics is interesting and opens up fresh new perspectives.