Stanford CIS

Robots need civil rights, too

on

"Her fictional scenario fits right into issues tackled by the burgeoning field of robot law, according to University of Washington law professor Ryan Calo. “There’s a physical, biological set of understandings that permeate the Constitution,” he said. For example, we give every person a vote, and we give every person the right to reproduce. But what if an AI can reproduce 10 million versions of itself every second? Do we give all of them a vote? And what if a robot wants to run for president? Does it have to wait 35 years, even if it is born with adult-level consciousness? “If you give non-biological entities the same affordances as people who are born, grow old, and die, you will run into problems,” Calo concluded."