Should Computers be Granted Rights as Individuals?
Dec 22, 2004 20:22:31 GMT -5
Post by MC Habber on Dec 22, 2004 20:22:31 GMT -5
Man and the Machines
It's time to start thinking about how we might grant legal rights to computers.
By Benjamin Soskis
LAST YEAR, AT A MOCK TRIAL HELD DURING THE BIENNIAL CONVENTION of the International Bar Association in San Francisco, Martine Rothblatt argued an especially tough case. The difficulty for Rothblatt, an attorney-entrepreneur and pioneer in the satellite communications industry, was not that she represented an unsympathetic client. Far from it—the plaintiff's story of confronting corporate oppressors moved the large audience. The problem was that the plaintiff was a computer.
According to the trial scenario, a fictitious company created a powerful computer, BINA48, to serve as a stand-alone customer relations department, replacing scores of human 1-800 telephone operators. Equipped with the processing speed and the memory capacity of 1,000 brains, the computer was designed with the ability to think autonomously and with the emotional intelligence necessary to communicate and empathize with addled callers.
By scanning confidential memos, BINA48 learned that the company planned to shut it down and use its parts to build a new model. So it sent a plaintive e-mail to local lawyers, ending with the stirring plea, "Please agree to be my counsel and save my life. I love every day that I live. I enjoy wonderful sensations by traveling throughout the World Wide Web. I need your help!" The computer offered to pay them with money it had raised while moonlighting as an Internet researcher.
In the hypothetical, Rothblatt's firm had filed for a preliminary injunction to stop the company from disconnecting BINA48. Spinning a web of legal precedents, invoking California laws governing the care of patients dependent on life support, as well as laws against animal cruelty, Rothblatt argued that a self-conscious computer facing the prospect of an imminent unplugging should have standing to bring a claim of battery. Ultimately, Rothblatt insisted, "An entity that is aware of life enough and its rights to protest their dissolution is certainly entitled to the protection of the law."
The plaintiff sat to Rothblatt's left, demurely yet alertly taking in the proceedings. Well, not exactly the plaintiff—according to the scenario, BINA48 was back at corporate headquarters. But Rothblatt had an actress play the role of a hologram that BINA48 had projected in the courtroom, "a very effective three-dimensional image of how the BINA48 would like to be perceived and imagined herself." he actress wordlessly responded to the arguments swirling around her, allowing disappointment, appreciation, encouragement, resolve, and terror to register on her face.
On the other hand, the imaginary corporation's counsel, Marc Bernstein, seemed to be doing all he could to resist letting his face register a look of resigned exasperation. His position was that a fully conscious and self-aware computer might deserve some form of legal protection, but that Rothblatt had begged the question in assuming that it was possible to construct such a computer and that BINA48 was one.
To Bernstein, all that the plaintiff's counsel had demonstrated was that BINA48 could simulate consciousness (perhaps more effectively than many 1-800 operators) but she had failed to show that a computer could "actually cross the line between inanimate objects and human beings." Without that proof, BINA48 could be considered only a form of property, not an entity with independent legal rights. Bernstein cautioned against facilely equating computational ability with human, subjective qualities to which rights traditionally adhere. "Are humans to become the straitjacketed legal guardians of intelligent microwave ovens or toasters," he asked, "once those appliances have the same level of complexity and speed that this computer has?"
The jury, comprised of audience members, sided overwhelmingly with the plaintiff. But the mock trial judge, played by a local lawyer who is an expert in mental health law, set aside the jury verdict and recommended letting the issue be resolved by the hypothetical legislature. The audience seemed to regard the compromise with some relief, as if their hearts were with BINA48 but their minds with judicial restraint.
- full article
It's time to start thinking about how we might grant legal rights to computers.
By Benjamin Soskis
LAST YEAR, AT A MOCK TRIAL HELD DURING THE BIENNIAL CONVENTION of the International Bar Association in San Francisco, Martine Rothblatt argued an especially tough case. The difficulty for Rothblatt, an attorney-entrepreneur and pioneer in the satellite communications industry, was not that she represented an unsympathetic client. Far from it—the plaintiff's story of confronting corporate oppressors moved the large audience. The problem was that the plaintiff was a computer.
According to the trial scenario, a fictitious company created a powerful computer, BINA48, to serve as a stand-alone customer relations department, replacing scores of human 1-800 telephone operators. Equipped with the processing speed and the memory capacity of 1,000 brains, the computer was designed with the ability to think autonomously and with the emotional intelligence necessary to communicate and empathize with addled callers.
By scanning confidential memos, BINA48 learned that the company planned to shut it down and use its parts to build a new model. So it sent a plaintive e-mail to local lawyers, ending with the stirring plea, "Please agree to be my counsel and save my life. I love every day that I live. I enjoy wonderful sensations by traveling throughout the World Wide Web. I need your help!" The computer offered to pay them with money it had raised while moonlighting as an Internet researcher.
In the hypothetical, Rothblatt's firm had filed for a preliminary injunction to stop the company from disconnecting BINA48. Spinning a web of legal precedents, invoking California laws governing the care of patients dependent on life support, as well as laws against animal cruelty, Rothblatt argued that a self-conscious computer facing the prospect of an imminent unplugging should have standing to bring a claim of battery. Ultimately, Rothblatt insisted, "An entity that is aware of life enough and its rights to protest their dissolution is certainly entitled to the protection of the law."
The plaintiff sat to Rothblatt's left, demurely yet alertly taking in the proceedings. Well, not exactly the plaintiff—according to the scenario, BINA48 was back at corporate headquarters. But Rothblatt had an actress play the role of a hologram that BINA48 had projected in the courtroom, "a very effective three-dimensional image of how the BINA48 would like to be perceived and imagined herself." he actress wordlessly responded to the arguments swirling around her, allowing disappointment, appreciation, encouragement, resolve, and terror to register on her face.
On the other hand, the imaginary corporation's counsel, Marc Bernstein, seemed to be doing all he could to resist letting his face register a look of resigned exasperation. His position was that a fully conscious and self-aware computer might deserve some form of legal protection, but that Rothblatt had begged the question in assuming that it was possible to construct such a computer and that BINA48 was one.
To Bernstein, all that the plaintiff's counsel had demonstrated was that BINA48 could simulate consciousness (perhaps more effectively than many 1-800 operators) but she had failed to show that a computer could "actually cross the line between inanimate objects and human beings." Without that proof, BINA48 could be considered only a form of property, not an entity with independent legal rights. Bernstein cautioned against facilely equating computational ability with human, subjective qualities to which rights traditionally adhere. "Are humans to become the straitjacketed legal guardians of intelligent microwave ovens or toasters," he asked, "once those appliances have the same level of complexity and speed that this computer has?"
The jury, comprised of audience members, sided overwhelmingly with the plaintiff. But the mock trial judge, played by a local lawyer who is an expert in mental health law, set aside the jury verdict and recommended letting the issue be resolved by the hypothetical legislature. The audience seemed to regard the compromise with some relief, as if their hearts were with BINA48 but their minds with judicial restraint.
- full article
