Eurocrats slammed for wanting to give rights to robots

The European Parliament is getting flack from over 150 international experts in the field of artificial intelligence, robotics, commerce, law, and ethics. The issue here is the parliament's proposal to grant personhood status to intelligent robots. While eurocrats claim it would make it easier to figure out who's to blame when a robot screws up or goes rogue, experts believe this is opening Pandora's box. Some of the authors argue it provides the wrong incentives for manufacturers, and may let them off the hook in case of liabilities. Either way, it's a very interesting subject as it leads to a whole host of questions.

“A legal status for a robot can’t derive from the Natural Person model, since the robot would then hold human rights, such as the right to dignity, the right to its integrity, the right to remuneration or the right to citizenship, thus directly confronting the Human rights. This would be in contradiction with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,” the authors claim. “The legal status for a robot can’t derive from the Legal Entity model [either], since it implies the existence of human persons behind the legal person to represent and direct it. And this is not the case for a robot.”

Full details at Gizmodo.