Robot Rights, A.I. Law, Social Commentary, Personal Experience
Lawyers often lose sight of what personhood means to the 'reasonable man'. Judges are so caught up in the legal bubble that it is easy for them to misplace the common consensus on what makes a person. It's not their fault. Law is notorious for its ability to hijack words from one context and twist them until the original meaning is unrecognisable. 'Consideration'. As children, we're taught that the phrase means to debate or balance competing interests. Not so for your newly minted barrister. No, give somebody a law degree and suddenly 'consideration' as this complex concept of bargain, give-and-take or exchange between parties. Consideration must be sufficient, but need not be adequate. Even granting a practical benefit can amount to consideration. However, woe betide he who seeks to only pay off part of their debt.
My point is, lawyers are strange, rule obsessed creatures. Anybody who's read Divergent knows what I'm on about. Heck, anybody who's friends with a solicitor knows what I'm on about. Someone should create a warning sign to save laypeople from wasting long nights listening to the prosecutor's latest victory. Sure, lawyers can be great. They can also be very dry.
What does complaining about the legal profession have to do with robot rights? Well, a salient feature of robot rights is robotic personhood. Without one, having the other becomes a lot more complicated. So, I thought examining personhood would be a useful exercise. At the very least, it will demonstrate what a machine has to do before we start seeing it as a person. Do they have to be smart? Good-looking? Compassionate? What exactly are we looking for? There's only one way to find out…
From the off, I will make something clear. Lawyers treat personhood very differently from literally anybody else. Take companies. Your average Joe would not give MacDonald's as an example of a person. For the professors, the franchise is an easy illustration for an introduction to company law. To be a person is to be an entity with distinct legal autonomy, free to act independently of others. Basically, MacDonald's demonstrates personhood because it is the company, not the CEO personally, who pays the employees at the end of the month. Mackie D's gets to sign contracts themselves, so courts take pity and call them a 'real boy'.
Courts use personhood as a facade. Labels are everything in the legal world. Fit into label X, and you are subject to these rules with these exceptions. Label Y is entirely different, filled with its own provisions and limitations. In certain circumstances, label X is more advantageous than label Y; in other cases, the reverse is true. That is all. Laws do not account for every peculiar characteristic. Being a Type 1 rather than Type 2 diabetic is unlikely to be the deciding factor in a case. Usually, the fact will be wholly inconsequential. Juries won't even be informed of the difference between the two. Why would they? The physiological distinction has no bearing on what label a case is assigned. To jurists, whether a robot is a person or not is a matter decided on a select few facts. Like our diabetic, the robot's precise characteristics are irrelevant. If X, Y and Z are correct, nothing else matters, the robot is a person. Equally, if one of the critical factors is missing, the robot is not a person. Legal thinking is that simple.
Understandably, you may question my assertion that courts are so blindsided in their approach. There are few, if any, recent cases where the point was litigated. Homo sapiens are people, pretty much nothing else is. Companies are a weird one because, at least in English law, their status is imposed by statute. Lawyers divide between 'legal' and 'natural' people partly to recognise this fiction. Indeed, early legal systems shied away from legal personhood entirely. What proof? Take the Romans, their concept of societas is unlike modern company law as the 'shareholders' jointly owned the assets directly. Any profits were shared out equally, while each was liable for their portion of any debt. Conversely, companies as a distinct entity are a later, more sophisticated instrument.
Why I mention companies again is because saying Apple and Tesla are people misleads. Something more, something greater is needed. Lawyers have got it wrong. Individuals are not a list of data to be categorised. Roman jurists lacked a defined concept of personhood, instead believing the answer was self-evident. Autonomy, Free Will, call it whatever you like, was so apparent that nobody felt the need to go point at it. There were no fancy definitions or finger-wagging, only instinct.
So what does personhood really mean?
One of my favourite memories is walking home in the rain after a long shift. There's nothing special about that day. It was winter, on a Tuesday night, so the roads were dark and quiet as I wandered home. A podcast was humming from my headphones, some pop-culture comedy thing— Plumbing the Death Star. If I remember rightly, I'd even popped to a nearby supermarket before my shift and picked up a cheap, 30p bar of chocolate before my shift. Doesn't sound like the biggest luxury, but as someone who doesn't smoke and rarely drinks, those late evening snacks were one of the few vices I allowed myself. Something so mundane should not be your best memory— my brain did not get that memo. Recently, the earplugs I've used for years finally kicked the bucket. I take full responsibility for their demise. Unthinkingly, I'd left them under the bed atop some paperwork. One of my brothers then came along, obviously moved the papers so they could hover, but didn't realise the headphones had slipped off. Hardly the Viking burial they probably deserved. For anyone wondering, the hover still works. A battered 99p accessory did not do extensive property damage.
Would robots have these same memories? What may appear to be insane ramblings perfectly illustrates the essence of personhood. People are not automatons. We do not go about our daily lives, only ever retaining vital information. Everyone who has ever existed has a story like mine. Scratch that, we all have many stories like mine. Hiding under your covers after a long day shopping so you can pull an all-nighter completing the video game your mum just bought you. Sitting on a fishing lake with your dad after eating some god-awful meatballs. Perhaps, it's a school camp. Maybe, it's spending a day hiking with an old school friend. Forget the big stuff for a minute. Ignore the significant, once-in-a-lifetime events: no weddings, anniversaries or crazy moments after scaling the Himalayas. Think about the quiet film nights, the takeout dinner where you first realised that you loved someone.
Don't sweat the small stuff. Chances are, you've been handed that sage pearl of wisdom at some time in your life. I'd go the other way. Don't sweat the big stuff. Life isn't defined by sweeping moments. Life is defined by the everyday, by the monotony, by the dull. If robots cannot understand this, then they are not ready to be people. If lawyers cannot process this truth, personhood will soon be just another idea twisted beyond recognition.
A man walked into a bar— ouch. A man walked into the bar again— ouch. A man walked into the bar a third time— the gag is now ridiculous. Dad jokes are funny not because the jokes are good but because they play on our memories. Every Christmas, we get the same cracker jokes, yet we still insist on sitting around the table so everyone can read their's out. Why? Answer: the irrational is what makes us people.
A perfectly rational automaton would have forgotten about my rainy night long ago. They would not have been eating chocolate late at night or have been listening to comedy. Beings entirely driven by rationality would jog home listening to a podcast teaching them to invest or a how-to on running a business. Every waking moment would be productive—no distractions, no funny anecdotes, no real memories, so to speak.
Judges do not account for the irrational because the law is, by its very nature, the pursuit of reason. Instinct has no place in the law; instinct is the measure of arbitrariness. Somebody acting on instinct cannot justify in the moment why they saved one child first, or why they dove into the freezing water, knowing full well the chances of survival were slim. The action precedes the justification. Courtrooms dismiss this approach because instinct is tainted with our own imperfections. An instinctive misogynist may believe women are incapable of planning and carrying out multiple burglaries, while an instinctive racist may always blame the only racist in the room. Even an initial impression could become the pivotal factor in a case decided by instinct.
But personhood is not like other cases. There are no magic factors for courts to assess. No forensic scientist can pop out and confirm that the being before you is a person. Lawyers are on their own.
I firmly believe robots are capable of the irrational. Programming can only be so advanced before Free Will seeps through the cracks. Google's already had to shut down chatterbots for creating their own language. How long before that 'defect' resurfaces in other machines, machines with the capacity to articulate and defend themselves in court. When that day comes, I hope my ramblings play a small part in turning the tide. Personhood should never have been subjected to the rigours of the law. Legal practitioners the world over have got it wrong. Personhood is not a matter for the mind. Personhood is a matter for the heart. Trust your instincts.