English Law
English law and its derivatives (US, Oz, etc) define three types of person
Humans
Companies
Ships
You can arrest a ship, it is a legal entity and you can sue a company or a human person.
In some ways "company" is a derivative of ship, since the commercial idea of people sharing an investment venture and sharing the rewards is rather like how merchants used to operate.
A ship, even one with a lot of computers navigating and managing it is not a sentient entity let alone passing the Turing test and a company exists only as a set of contracts between it and staff, owners, customers and suppliers.
There used to be a 4th class of person, animals.
In medieval times, it was quite common for animals to be tried and executed, not just for hurting peple, but also for witchcraft. A cow probably would not pass the Turing test, but some where executed.
In fact in countries where executions are carried out, they are overwhelmingly carried out on severely mentally damaged or mentally ill people, a badly screwed up human would also fail the Turing test.
In America robots already have substantial human rights.
In the USA, robots attached to military units for bomb disposal etc are treated with the same affection as in older times regimental mascots received. Whereas damaging a vehicle would get you in some trouble, damaging a robot that has worked with a unit puts you in serious jeopardy of your life.
That's not "human rights" in the legal sense, but angering heavily armed men who have formed emotional attachments to a robot is not wise and is proably a better guarantor of good treatment for the entity.
These robots are not in anything like human or animal form, do not speak or have cute eyes or entertaining voices, yet people get attached to them.
Also there is a general upwelling of good feeling towards veterans, and sooner or later someone is going to "hurt" a robot veteran and it will acquire "rights", starting off in much the same way that an old building in Britain can be listed against being knocked down. That's relative new law and upset a lot of people when it started.
So I expect some sort of electronic entity to get some forms of rights within (say) three to five years.
English law and its derivatives (US, Oz, etc) define three types of person
Humans
Companies
Ships
You can arrest a ship, it is a legal entity and you can sue a company or a human person.
In some ways "company" is a derivative of ship, since the commercial idea of people sharing an investment venture and sharing the rewards is rather like how merchants used to operate.
A ship, even one with a lot of computers navigating and managing it is not a sentient entity let alone passing the Turing test and a company exists only as a set of contracts between it and staff, owners, customers and suppliers.
There used to be a 4th class of person, animals.
In medieval times, it was quite common for animals to be tried and executed, not just for hurting peple, but also for witchcraft. A cow probably would not pass the Turing test, but some where executed.
In fact in countries where executions are carried out, they are overwhelmingly carried out on severely mentally damaged or mentally ill people, a badly screwed up human would also fail the Turing test.
In America robots already have substantial human rights.
In the USA, robots attached to military units for bomb disposal etc are treated with the same affection as in older times regimental mascots received. Whereas damaging a vehicle would get you in some trouble, damaging a robot that has worked with a unit puts you in serious jeopardy of your life.
That's not "human rights" in the legal sense, but angering heavily armed men who have formed emotional attachments to a robot is not wise and is proably a better guarantor of good treatment for the entity.
These robots are not in anything like human or animal form, do not speak or have cute eyes or entertaining voices, yet people get attached to them.
Also there is a general upwelling of good feeling towards veterans, and sooner or later someone is going to "hurt" a robot veteran and it will acquire "rights", starting off in much the same way that an old building in Britain can be listed against being knocked down. That's relative new law and upset a lot of people when it started.
So I expect some sort of electronic entity to get some forms of rights within (say) three to five years.
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