Recently a man in Bellevue, Washington, finding that his car would not go through some six inches of snow, became enraged and attacked the automobile. He broke out the car’s windows with a tire iron and emptied a revolver into its side. “He killed it,” said police. “It’s a case of autocide.”
Such wanton acts of violence are not limited to Coke machines, photocopiers, public telephones, and other gizmos that steal our dimes and quarters. In 1979, a sheriff in California shot a large mainframe computer for uncontrollably spewing out arrest records. As if to even the score, that same year a one-ton Litton Industries mobile robot stalked and killed a human warehouse worker who trespassed on the machine’s turf during business hours. The worker’s family sued Litton and was awarded a $10-million judgment, but the surly robot got off with a slap on the sensor.
Under present law, robots are just inanimate property without rights or duties. Computers aren’t legal persons and have no standing in the judicial system. As such, computers and robots may not be the perpetrators of a felony; a man who dies at the hands of a robot has not been murdered. (An entertaining episode of the old Outer Limits TV series, entitled “I, Robot,” involved a court trial of a humanoid robot accused of murdering its creator.) But blacks, children, women, foreigners, corporations, prisoners, and Jews have all been regarded as legal nonpersons at some time in history. Certainly any self-aware robot that speaks English and is able to recognize moral alternatives, and thus make moral choices, should be considered a worthy “robot person” in our society. If that is so, shouldn’t they also possess the rights and duties of all citizens?
