Over at CNBC:
Now is the time to figure out the ethical rights of robots in the workplace
Wait, what?
By the year 2025, robots and machines driven by artificial intelligence are predicted to perform half of all productive functions in the workplace. What is not clear is whether the robots will have any worker rights.
They're machines, not lifeforms. They don't have rights. Their owners have property rights. This is not difficult.
We kick the car when it does not operate, shove the vending machine when it does not dispense, and bang at the sides of the printer when it does not produce a copy. What is new is that it will only be a matter of time before the automated creatures will "feel" this hostility and/or feel the need to retaliate.
Been at George Lucas's stash, have we?
Jabba's robot torture chamber shows a particularly sadistic bit of world-building: the robots are designed to be susceptible to torture. It's like Proctor-Silex went out of its way to make toasters and blenders that could feel pain and respond with anguish.
Why would any sane person do that? Unless the entire appliance business is taken over by particularly evil psychopaths, it ain't gonna happen.
These acts of hostility and violence have no current legal consequence — machines have no protected legal rights.
"No current legal consequence"? Damaging someone else's property most assuredly does have legal consequences, at least if the laws are being enforced. And the author doesn't seem to be referring much to an owner mistreating his own equipment*.
Robots need worker rights, too
No. They. Don't.
This whole thing is a total mess. It's like the author learned all about AI from Sci-Fi stories and corporate press releases. Here's a hint: there are no such things as positronic brains.
What's being called "artificial intelligence" is so far from artificial people - or even artificial hamsters - that there's no reason to believe that current work will ever produce entities worthy of the legal status of people. It's very likely to create vast disruptions in the skilled-labor market, yes, but just because a program can give better legal advice than the average fully-credentialed lawyer doesn't mean it's a real person.
Andrew Sherman is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Seyfarth Shaw
And if you ever need a law firm, there's one to avoid. Unless you don't have a leg to stand on and need an elaborate song and dance. Even at that, you might be better off with Allan Sherman. Even if he is dead these many years.
* Cue Henry Morgan's Mr. Dooley.
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