Professor Samir Chopra of the Brooklyn College Department of Philosophy, and Laurence F. White, Esq., have published A Legal Theory for Autonomous Artificial Agents (University of Michigan Press, 2011). Here is the publisher’s summary:
As corporations and government agencies replace human employees with online customer service and automated phone systems, we become accustomed to doing business with nonhuman agents. If artificial intelligence (AI) technology advances as today’s leading researchers predict, these agents may soon function with such limited human input that they appear to act independently. When they achieve that level of autonomy, what legal status should they have?
Samir Chopra and Laurence F. White present a carefully reasoned discussion of how existing philosophy and legal theory can accommodate increasingly sophisticated AI technology. Arguing for the legal personhood of an artificial agent, the authors discuss what it means to say it has “knowledge” and the ability to make a decision. They consider key questions such as who must take responsibility for an agent’s actions, whom the agent serves, and whether it could face a conflict of interest.
Tags: Artificial intelligence and law, Intelligent agents and law, Legal capacity of intelligent agents, Legal liability of intelligent agents, Legal personhood of intelligent agents
