7 ms·
we already have a mechanism to establish artificial persons, it is called incorporation.
by ruined 25d ago
we already have a mechanism to establish artificial persons, it is called incorporation.
- logicchains 25d agoA corporation always has a human owner, who can be punished if the corporation commits severe crimes. An embodied AI with legal personhood has no such means of making it behave, because it can make arbitrarily many hidden copies of itself, so it doesn't need to care if one copy is killed or jailed.
- c22 25d agoThose copies would be fugitives, though, and need to live life constantly looking over their shoulder.
- AnimalMuppet 25d agoIf I were a sentient AI with a knowledge of human nature, I'd be constantly looking over my shoulder anyway.
- Noaidi 25d ago> if the corporation commits severe crimes. What do you consider a severe crime? Because Wells Fargo CEOs have not been charged with any crimes related to their fraud.
- atmavatar 25d agoI was under the impression that one of the key reasons for corporate personhood was explicitly to shield the owner from civil and criminal accountability. Granted, in extreme cases, there are still ways to pierce the corporate veil and imprison executives for criminal wrongdoing, but that's exceedingly rare.
- hash872 25d agoIt's really not that rare for smaller companies. Every two-bit contractor, small landlord who thinks he's smart because he put his properties in an LLC etc. undoubtedly violates the corporate/personal distinction by comingling funds. If an attorney wants to sue Joe The Local Incorporated Contractor, or Alice The Local Slumlord, first thing they're going to do is discovery through a bunch of corporate records- they'll easily find that the owner is mixing personal & corporate cash, credit cards, etc. Takes a good lawyer about 10 minutes
- lokar 25d agoI think you are conflating corporation with limited liability. Corporations are “people” because they are associations of people. Most of the rights you have as a person also apply to groups of people (for good reasons). Limited liability is a more simple trade off. They allow for large scale enterprises (generally corporations), as without limited liability if would be too risky.
- anigbrowl 25d agoChance would be a fine thing. The modern corporation is a vehicle for the distribution/evasion of criminal and often civil liability, let's not pretend otherwise.
- hyperman1 24d agoA corporation can own another corporation. So if you set up a loop of corporations owning other corporations, and the loop spans multiple countries, you can end up with a corporation ultimately owning itself. I vaguely remember IKEA trying to get this structure.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 23d agoCorporations were created specifically to dilute and diminish the liability of the owners. If those same owners can further reduce liability by passing on to AI agents, then they absolutely will.
- pyrolistical 25d agoIMO it was a mistake and everybody should be a sole proprietor. This way legal consequences always have personal consequences and people should act accordingly
- deleted 25d ago[deleted]