Should Robots Have Rights?

"AT SOME POINT IN THE NOT-TOO-DISTANT FUTURE, we might actually face a sentient, intelligent machine who demands, or who many come to believe deserves, some form of legal protection. The plausibility of this occurrence is an extremely touchy subject in the artificial intelligence field, particularly since overoptimism and speculation about the future has often embarrassed the movement in the past.

The legal community has been reluctant to look into the question as well. According to Christopher Stone, a University of Southern California law professor who briefly raised the issue in his well-known 1972 essay, 'Should Trees Have Standing?,' this is because, historically, rights have rarely been granted in abstraction. They have come only when society has been confronted with cases in need of adjudication. At the moment, there is no artifact of sufficient intelligence, consciousness, or moral agency to grant legislative or judicial urgency to the question of rights for artificial intelligence.

But some A.I. researchers believe that moment might not be far off. And as their creations begin to display a growing number of human attributes and capabilities�as computers write poems and serve as caretakers and receptionists�these researchers have begun to explore the ethical and legal status of their creations. 'Strong A.I.' is the theory that machines can be built that will not merely act as if conscious, but will actually be conscious, and advocates of this view envision a two-front assault on the fortress of human exceptionalism involving both the physical and functional properties of the brain. And these researchers predict a breach within the next half-century. "

From Legal Affairs - Man and the Machines via this IPTAblog post.