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Legal Personality for AI

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Robot Rules

Abstract

Turner explains that giving AI legal personality does not mean treating it as a human. Legal personality refers to a bundle of rights and obligations. Like rights, legal personality is a fiction: a tool to further the aims of a given society. Turner suggests that legal personality for AI could be justified as an elegant solution to (i) pragmatic concerns arising from the difficulties of assigning responsibility for AI (see Chapter 3) and/or (ii) in order to support AI’s moral rights, if any (see Chapter 4). If legal personality for AI is adopted as a solution, helpful features of such a regime would include the ability for AI to holds rights, obligations, and assets, and for there to be a means of verifiable identification or registration.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Sophia”, Website of Hanson Robotics, http://www.hansonrobotics.com/robot/sophia/, accessed 1 June 2018.

  2. 2.

    See, for instance, James Vincent, “Pretending to Give a Robot Citizenship Helps No One”, The Verge, 30 October 2017, https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/30/16552006/robot-rights-citizenship-saudi-arabia-sophia, accessed 5 November 2017; Cleve R. Wootson Jr., “Saudi Arabia, Which Denies Women Equal Rights, Makes a Robot a Citizen”, Washington Post, 29 October 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/10/29/saudi-arabia-which-denies-women-equal-rights-makes-a-robot-a-citizen/?utm_term=.da4c35055597, accessed 1 June 2018.

  3. 3.

    Patrick Caughill, “An Artificial Intelligence Has Officially Been Granted Residency”, Futurism, 6 November 2017, https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence-officially-granted-residency/, accessed 1 June 2018.

  4. 4.

    In the UK, the term “legal personality” is more common, whereas in the US “personhood” seems to be preferred. In the book, the terms “personality” and “personhood” are used interchangeably.

  5. 5.

    Lawrence B. Solum, “Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences”, North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 70 (1992), 1231. Solum was not the only theorist to make such a proposal, see for instance, R. George Wright, “The Pale Cast of Thought: On the Legal Status of Sophisticated Androids”, Legal Studies Forum, Vol. 25 (2001), 297.

  6. 6.

    Toby Walsh, Android Dreams: The Past, Present and Future of Artificial Intelligence (London: Hurst, 2017), 28.

  7. 7.

    See also Koops, Hildebrandt, and Jaquet-Chiffell, “Bridging the Accountability Gap: Rights for New Entities in the Information Society?”, Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, Vol. 11, No. 2 (2010), 497–561, who make a similar observation.

  8. 8.

    European Parliament Resolution with recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics (2015/2103(INL)).

  9. 9.

    Ibid., para. 59(f).

  10. 10.

    See also Chapter 2 at s. 2.1.1.

  11. 11.

    17 US (4 Wheat.) 518 (1819).

  12. 12.

    Joanna J. Bryson, Mihailis E. Diamantis, and Thomas D. Grant, “Of, for, and by the People: The Legal Lacuna of Synthetic Persons”, Artificial Intelligence and Law, Vol. 25, No. 3 (September 2017), 273–291, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10506-017-9214-9, accessed 1 June 2018 (hereafter Bryson et al., “Of, for, and by the People”). See, more generally, Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State, translated by Anders Wedberg, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1945).

  13. 13.

    Joanna Bryson, an expert in AI and ethics, is a vocal critics. See, for example, Dr. Bryson’s blog: Adventures in NI, https://joanna-bryson.blogspot.co.uk/, accessed 1 June 2018. For her posts on the topic see: https://joanna-bryson.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/why-robots-and-animals-never-need-rights.html, https://joanna-bryson.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/human-rights-are-thing-sort-of-addendum.html, and https://joanna-bryson.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/rights-are-devastatingly-bad-way-to.html, accessed 1 June 2018.

  14. 14.

    Bryson et al., “Of, for, and by the People”.

  15. 15.

    Ibid.

  16. 16.

    Samir Chopra and Laurence White, “Artificial Agents—Personhood in Law and Philosophy”, Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2004), 635–639.

  17. 17.

    “Six Things Saudi Arabian Women Still Cannot Do”, The Week, 22 May 2018, http://www.theweek.co.uk/60339/things-women-cant-do-in-saudi-arabia, accessed 1 June 2018.

  18. 18.

    In Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 558 US 310, the US Supreme Court declared that the protections for the freedom of speech contained in the First Amendment to the US Constitution had the effect of prohibiting the government from restricting independent expenditures for communications by non-profit corporations, for-profit corporations, labour unions and other associations. See also Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 US 134 S.Ct. 2751 (2014), holding that a closely held company could possess First Amendment freedom of religion rights.

  19. 19.

    Hale v. Henkel, 291 US 43 (1906).

  20. 20.

    Shawn Bayern, “The Implications of Modern Business-Entity Law for the Regulation of Autonomous Systems”, European Journal of Risk Regulation, Vol. 2 (2016), 297–309.

  21. 21.

    Matthew Scherer, “Is AI Personhood Already Possible Under U.S. LLC Laws? (Part One: New York)”, 14 May 2017, http://www.lawandai.com/2017/05/14/is-ai-personhood-already-possible-under-current-u-s-laws-dont-count-on-it-part-one/, accessed 1 June 2018.

  22. 22.

    Shawn Bayern, Thomas Burri, Thomas D. Grant, Daniel M. Häusermann, Florian Möslein, and Richard Williams, “Company Law and Autonomous Systems: A Blueprint for Lawyers, Entrepreneurs, and Regulators”, Hastings Science and Technology Law Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2017), 135–161. One member of the group, Shawn Bayern, has written separately that it is possible in certain US states to give de facto legal personhood to an autonomous system through a permanently memberless limited liability company which in turn owns the autonomous system. Shawn Bayern, “The Implications of Modern Business-Entity Law for the Regulation of Autonomous Systems”, Stanford Technology Law Review, Vol. 19 (2015), 93. See also Paulius Čerka, Jurgita Grigienė, and Gintarė Sirbikytė. “Is It Possible to Grant Legal Personality to Artificial Intelligence Software Systems?”, Computer Law & Security Review Vol. 33, No. 5 (October 2017), 685–699.

  23. 23.

    Thomas Burri, “How to Bestow Legal Personality on Your Artificial Intelligence”, Oxford University Law Faculty Blog, 8 November 2016, https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/business-law-blog/blog/2016/11/how-bestow-legal-personality-your-artificial-intelligence, accessed 1 June 2018.

  24. 24.

    European Parliament Resolution with recommendations to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics (2015/2103(INL)), Recital AC.

  25. 25.

    Thomas Burri, “Free Movement of Algorithms: Artificially Intelligent Persons Conquer the European Union’s Internal Market”, in Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence, edited by Woodrow Barfield and Ugo Pagallo (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018). States can grant nationality to legal persons already recognised in other states (for instance by a grant of dual nationality). However, this usually applies only to natural persons, i.e. humans.

  26. 26.

    Mario Vicente Micheletti and others v. Delegación del Gobierno en Cantabria, C-369/90, ECR 1992 I-4239, para. 10.

  27. 27.

    This principle was laid down by the International Justice in the Nottebohm case (Liechtenstein v. Guatemala) [1955] ICJ 1.

  28. 28.

    This proposition was established in The Case of the S.S. “Lotus” (France v. Turkey) (1927) P.C.I.J., Ser. A, No. 10.

  29. 29.

    There are limits though: in July 2017, the Indian Supreme Court held that two sacred rivers in India did not have the same rights as humans, thereby overturning a decision by the High Court rendered in March that year, see “India’s Ganges and Yamuna Rivers Are ‘Not Living Entities’”, BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-40537701, accessed 1 June 2018. The possibility remains though for such rivers to have other, non-human legal rights.

  30. 30.

    Thomas Burri, “Free Movement of Algorithms: Artificially Intelligent Persons Conquer the European Union’s Internal Market”, in Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence, edited by Woodrow Barfield and Ugo Pagallo (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018).

  31. 31.

    See, for a similar argument, Shawn Bayern, “Of Bitcoins, Independently Wealthy Software, and the Zero-Member LLC”, Northwestern University Law Review Online, Vol. 108 (2014), 257.

  32. 32.

    [1991] 1 WLR 1362.

  33. 33.

    Überseering BV v. Nordic Construction Company Baumanagement GmbH (2002) C-208/00, ECR I-9919.

  34. 34.

    Thomas Burri, “Free Movement of Algorithms: Artificially Intelligent Persons Conquer the European Union’s Internal Market”, Oxford Law Faculty Blog, 4 January 2018, https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/business-law-blog/blog/2018/01/free-movement-algorithms-artificially-intelligent-persons-conquer, accessed 1 June 2018. See also, Thomas Burri, “Free Movement of Algorithms: Artificially Intelligent Persons Conquer the European Union’s Internal Market”, Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence, edited by Woodrow Barfield and Ugo Pagallo (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018).

  35. 35.

    There is a limited right to derogation from market freedoms under the TFEU on the basis of public policy under art. 51(1) of that treaty. However, generally speaking public policy has been construed narrowly: see, for example, Van Duyn v. Home Office, 41–74, ECR 1974, 1337, para. 18.

  36. 36.

    Case of Sutton’s Hospital (1612) 77 Eng Rep 960.

  37. 37.

    Florian Möslein, “Robots in the Boardroom: Artificial Intelligence and Corporate Law”, in Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence, edited by Woodrow Barfield and Ugo Pagallo (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2018).

  38. 38.

    Ibid. Möslein cites Dairy Containers Ltd v. NZI Bank Ltd [1995] 2 NZLR 30, 79. See also In Re Bally’s Grand Derivative Litigation, 23 Del.J.Corp.L., 677, 686.

  39. 39.

    “Algorithm Appointed Board Director”, BBC Website, 16 May 2014, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27426942, accessed 1 June 2018. The company in question is Deep Knowledge Ventures and the system is called Validating Investment Tool for Advancing Life Sciences, “VITAL”.

  40. 40.

    The trend of AI board appointments has continued: see, for instance, “Tieto the First Nordic Company to Appoint Artificial Intelligence to the Leadership Team of the New Data-Driven Businesses Unit”, Tieto Website, 17 October 2016, https://www.tieto.com/news/tieto-the-first-nordic-company-to-appoint-artificial-intelligence-to-the-leadership-team-of-the-new, accessed 1 June 2018.

  41. 41.

    For instance, Cade Metz, writing in Wired, describes in vivid terms how the human proxy “operator” Aja Huang followed the instructions provided to him by DeepMind’s AlphaGo: Cade Metz, “What the AI Behind Alphago Can Teach Us About Being Human”, Wired, 19 May 2016, https://www.wired.com/2016/05/google-alpha-go-ai/, accessed 1 June 2018.

  42. 42.

    Ibid.

  43. 43.

    Gunther Teubner, “Rights of Non-humans? Electronic Agents and Animals as New Actors in Politics and Law”, Lecture delivered 17 January 2007, Max Weber Lecture Series MWP 2007/04.

  44. 44.

    Jane Goodall and Steven M. Wise, “Are Chimpanzees Entitled to Fundamental Legal Rights?”, Animal Law, Vol. 3 (1997), 61. For extensive discussion of a similar point in relation to the environment, see Christopher D. Stone, “Should Trees Have Standing? Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects”, Southern California Law Review, Vol. 45 (1972), 450–501.

  45. 45.

    Bryson et al., “Of, for, and by the People”.

  46. 46.

    Lawrence B. Solum, “Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences”, North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 70 (1992), 1231.

  47. 47.

    David C. Vladeck, “Machines Without Principals: Liability Rules and Artificial Intelligence”, Washington Law Review, Vol. 89 (2014), 117, at 150. See also Benjamin D. Allgrove, “Legal Personality for Artificial Intellects: Pragmatic Solution or Science Fiction?” (Oxford University Doctoral Thesis, 2004).

  48. 48.

    Koops, Hildebrandt, and Jaquet-Chiffell, “Bridging the Accountability Gap: Rights for New Entities in the Information Society?” Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, Vol. 11, No. 2 (2010), 497–561. Chapter 3 demonstrated the problems which can arise under current legal structures when attempting to assign responsibility for actions carried out by AI which are unforeseeable and sufficiently independent of human input or guidance.

  49. 49.

    Curtis E.A. Karnow, “Liability for Distributed Artificial Intelligences”, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 11 (1996), 147. See also Andreas Matthias, “Automaten als Träger von Rechten”, Plädoyer für eine Gesetzänderung (Dissertation, Humboldt Universität, 2007).

  50. 50.

    The leading UK case on this principle is the House of Lords case, Salomon v. Salomon & Co Ltd [1897] AC 22.

  51. 51.

    Paul G. Mahoney, “Contract or Concession—An Essay on the History of Corporate Law”, Georgia Law Review, Vol. 34 (1999), 873, 878.

  52. 52.

    Gunther Teubner, “Rights of Non-humans? Electronic Agents and Animals as New Actors in Politics and Law”, Lecture delivered 17 January 2007, Max Weber Lecture Series MWP 2007/04.

  53. 53.

    See Tom Allen and Robin Widdison, “Can Computers Make Contracts?”, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Vol. 9 (1996), 26.

  54. 54.

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game (London: Allen Lane, 2017).

  55. 55.

    F. Patrick Hubbard, “‘Do Androids Dream?’: Personhood and Intelligent Artifacts”, Temple Law Review, Vol. 83 (2010–2011), 405–474, at 432.

  56. 56.

    Neil Richards and William Smart, “How Should the Law Think About Robots?”, in Robot Law, edited by Ryan Calo, A. Michael Froomkin, and Ian Kerr (Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2015), 3, at 4.

  57. 57.

    Jonathan Margolis, “Rights for Robots Is No More Than an Intellectual Game”, Financial Times, 10 May 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/2f41d1d2-33d3-11e7-99bd-13beb0903fa3, accessed 1 June 2018.

  58. 58.

    Janosch Delcker, “Europe Divided Over Robot ‘Personhood’”, Politico, 11 April 2018, https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-divided-over-robot-ai-artificial-intelligence-personhood/, accessed 1 June 2018. For the text of the letter, see: “Open Letter to the European Commission Artificial Intelligence and Robotics”, https://g8fip1kplyr33r3krz5b97d1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/RoboticsOpenLetter.pdf, accessed 1 June 2018.

  59. 59.

    “Open Letter to the European Commission Artificial Intelligence and Robotics”, https://g8fip1kplyr33r3krz5b97d1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/RoboticsOpenLetter.pdf, accessed 1 June 2018.

  60. 60.

    David J. Calverley, “Imagining a Non-biological Machine as a Legal Person”, AI & Society, Vol. 22 (2008), 523–537, 526.

  61. 61.

    Bryson et al., “Of, for, and by the People”, 4.2.1.

  62. 62.

    See Chapter 2 at s. 2.1.1.

  63. 63.

    “International Tin Council Case, JH Rayner (Mincing Lane) Ltd. v. Department of Trade and Industry”, International Law Reports, Vol. 81 (1990), 670.

  64. 64.

    Bryson et al., “Of, for, and by the People”, 4.2.1.

  65. 65.

    See Chapter 2 at s. 2.1.1.

  66. 66.

    In the UK, see, Petrodel Resources Ltd v. Prest [2013] UKSC 34. For the US position see MWH Int’l, Inc. v. Inversora Murten, S.A., No. 1:11-CV-2444-GHW, 2015 WL 728097, at 11 (S.D.N.Y. 11 February 2015) (citing William Wrigley Jr. Co. v. Waters, 890 F.2d 594, 600 (2d Cir. 1989).

  67. 67.

    Lord Sumption explained in the 2013 UK Supreme Court case Petrodel Resources Ltd v. Prest [2013] UKSC 34 at [8]: “The separate personality and property of a company is sometimes described as a fiction, and in a sense it is. But the fiction is the whole foundation of English company and insolvency law. As Robert Goff LJ once observed, in this domain ‘we are concerned not with economics but with law. The distinction between the two is, in law, fundamental’: Bank of Tokyo Ltd v. Karoon (Note) [1987] AC 45, 64. He could justly have added that it is not just legally but economically fundamental, since limited companies have been the principal unit of commercial life for more than a century. Their separate personality and property are the basis on which third parties are entitled to deal with them and commonly do deal with them”. On fiction theory, see David Runciman, Pluralism and the Personality of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Martin Wolff, “On the Nature of Legal Persons”, Law Quarterly Review, Vol. 54 (1938), 494–521; and John Dewey, “The Historic Background of Corporate Legal Personality”, Yale Law Journal, Vol. 35 (April 1926), 655–673.

  68. 68.

    Bryson et al., “Of, for, and by the People”, 4.2.2.

  69. 69.

    David Goodhart, The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

  70. 70.

    “Drawbridges Up”, The Economist, 30 July 2016, https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/07/30/drawbridges-up, accessed 1 June 2018.

  71. 71.

    Andrew Marr, “Anywheres vs Somewheres: The Split That Made Brexit Inevitable”, New Statesman, 7 March 2017.

  72. 72.

    David Goodhart, The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 3.

  73. 73.

    Blake Snow, “The Anti-technologist: Become a Luddite and Ditch Your Smartphone”, KSL, 23 December 2012, https://www.ksl.com/?sid=23241639, accessed 1 June 2018.

  74. 74.

    Jamie Bartlett, “Will 2018 Be the Year of the Neo-Luddite?” The Guardian, 4 March 2018. See also Jamie Bartlett, Radicals: Outsiders Changing the World (London: William Heinemann, 2018).

  75. 75.

    F. Patrick Hubbard, “‘Do Androids Dream?’: Personhood and Intelligent Artifacts”, Temple Law Review, Vol. 83 (2010–2011), 405–474, 419.

  76. 76.

    See Chapter 4 at s. 4.1.1.

  77. 77.

    Curtis E.A. Karnow, “Liability for Distributed Artificial Intelligences”, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1996), 147–204, 200.

  78. 78.

    See, for instance, Eric T. Olson, “Personal Identity”, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/identity-personal/, accessed 1 June 2018, and the sources cited therein.

  79. 79.

    A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (London: Gollancz, 1936), 194.

  80. 80.

    A realisation that the “female” AI protagonist, played by Scarlett Johansson, was in fact multiple entities, provided the plot twist for the film Her (Warner Bros, 2013).

  81. 81.

    “Personalised Search for Everyone”, Official Google Blog, 4 December 2009 https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/personalized-search-for-everyone.html, accessed 1 June 2018.

  82. 82.

    Masha Maksimava, “Google’s Personalized Search Explained: How Personalization Works, What It Means for SEO, and How to Make Sure It Doesn’t Skew Your Ranking Reports”, Link-Assistant.com, https://www.link-assistant.com/news/personalized-search.html, accessed 1 June 2018.

  83. 83.

    See, for example, Koops, Hildebrandt, and Jaquet-Chiffell, “Bridging the Accountability Gap: Rights for New Entities in the Information Society?” Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, Vol. 11, No. 2 (2010), 497–561, 516.

  84. 84.

    This is the solution favoured by Karnow, who proposes a “Registry” for AI, which “will certify the agent by inserting a unique encrypted warranty in the agent”. Curtis E.A. Karnow, “Liability for Distributed Artificial Intelligences”, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1, (1996), 147–204, 193 et seq. Allen and Widdison also propose a similar Registry, which would state the competence of registered AI agents and the limits on their liability. See also Tom Allen and Robin Widdison, “Can Computers Make Contracts?”, Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Vol. 9 (1996), 26.

  85. 85.

    Francisco Andrade, Paulo Novais, Jose Machado, and Jose Neves, “Contracting Agents: Legal Personality and Representation”, Artificial Intelligence and Law, Vol. 15 (2007), 357–373.

  86. 86.

    “Basel III: International Regulatory Framework for Banks”, Website of the Bank for International Settlements, https://www.bis.org/bcbs/basel3.htm, accessed 1 June 2018.

  87. 87.

    Giovanni Sartor, “Agents in Cyberlaw”, Proceedings of the Workshop on the Law of Electronic Agents (LEA 2002), 3–12.

  88. 88.

    Samir Chopra and Laurence White, “Artificial Agents—Personhood in Law and Philosophy”, Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2004), 635–639.

  89. 89.

    This is not always the case: a company could be ultimately owned by a trust, whose beneficiaries are non-human, such as a charity supporting animals.

  90. 90.

    Koops, Hildebrandt, and Jaquet-Chiffell, “Bridging the Accountability Gap: Rights for New Entities in the Information Society?” Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, Vol. 11, No. 2 (2010), 497–561, 554.

  91. 91.

    Ibid., 555.

  92. 92.

    Ibid., 557.

  93. 93.

    John C. Coffee, Jr., “‘No Soul to Damn: No Body to Kick’: An Unscandalised Inquiry into the Problem of Corporate Punishment”, Michigan Law Review, Vol. 79 (1981), 386.

  94. 94.

    Markus D. Dubber, “The Comparative History and Theory of Corporate Criminal Liability”, 10 July 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2114300, accessed 1 June 2018. The situation worldwide is by no means uniform: Italy was a fairly recent adopter of corporate criminal liability, via legislative decree no. 231/2001. German law has no criminal liability for enterprises.

  95. 95.

    See Chapter 3 at s. 3.3.1.

  96. 96.

    “Homepage”, Website of !Mediengruppe Bitnik, https://www.bitnik.org/, accessed 11 June 2017. As !Mediengruppe Bitnik have not publicised the sourcecode for their programme, we are not aware of whether the Random Darknet Shopper would indeed have fulfilled our definition of AI but we will assume for the purposes of this discussion that it did.

  97. 97.

    Mike Power, “What Happens When a Software Bot Goes on a Darknet Shopping Spree?”, The Guardian, 5 December 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/05/software-bot-darknet-shopping-spree-random-shopper, accessed 1 June 2018.

  98. 98.

    “Random Darknet Shopper Free”, Website of !Mediengruppe Bitnik, 14 April 2015, https://www.Bitnik.Org/R/2015-04-15-random-darknet-shopper-free/, accessed 1 June 2018; Christopher Markou, “We Could Soon Face a Robot Crimewave … the Law Needs to be Ready”, The Conversation, 11 April 2017, http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/discussion/opinion-we-could-soon-face-a-robot-crimewave-the-law-needs-to-be-ready, accessed 1 June 2018.

  99. 99.

    This appears to have been the situation in the death of Wanda Holbrook, a worker at an auto-parts factory in Michigan. James Temperton, “When Robots Kill: Deaths by Machines Are Nothing New but AI Is About to Change Everything”, Wired, 17 March 2017, http://www.wired.co.uk/article/robot-death-wanda-holbrook-lawsuit, accessed 1 June 2018.

  100. 100.

    See, for example, Lawrence B. Solum, “Legal Personhood for Artificial Intelligences”, North Carolina Law Review, Vol. 70 (1992), 1231–1287, 1239–1240.

  101. 101.

    Samir Chopra and Laurence White, A Legal Theory for Autonomous Artificial Agents (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2011), 3.

  102. 102.

    Paul G. Mahoney, “Contract or Concession—An Essay on the History of Corporate Law”, Georgia Law Review, Vol. 34 (1999), 873–894, 878.

  103. 103.

    Marshal S. Willick, “Artificial Intelligence: Some Legal Approaches and Implications”, AI Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1983), 5–16, at 14.

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Turner, J. (2019). Legal Personality for AI. In: Robot Rules . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96235-1_5

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