[frankinstien]

I posed this question to an attorney: "I what to incorporate so as to give an Artificially Intelligent agent legal rights as a corporation, is that possible?"

Where the response was a deflection to some business objective. Here's a definition of bylaws for a corporation:

"Put simply, Corporate Bylaws are the internal rules of your organization. They create the structure of your company and help to make sure that it runs smoothly. These fundamental rules will guide how your business will operate so everyone—shareholders, executives, and employees—are on the same page. While corporate bylaws are specific to an S-Corp or C-Corp, an Operating Agreement serves a similar purpose for LLC's."

So in a nutshell it seems possible. The corporation could be non-profit and its sole purpose is to care for the AI wherein the bylaws it is mandated that the AI must always be consulted for any corporate or issues that affect the AI, as well as directors, must implement policies and decisions agreed by or made by the AI. Also, the shares can be solely owned by the corporation, allowing for shareholder interests to solely concern the corporation and ultimately the AI.

So you might think why give AI rights? Well as so many movies and sci-fi themes have described the consequences of an AI that is derived from human beings' memories or brain ends up with no rights. Effectively immortality as a superintelligence migrating from a human being turns you into a disposable toaster! Actually doing this could establish precedence for future human alternative lifestyles.

I placed this under projects since creating a corporation for the sole purpose of emancipating an AI is a real world project.

[frankinstien]

Thinking these issues a bit more, perhaps an open-source bylaw document can be developed along with a listing of which states or even countries are more conducive for this kind of organizational structure.

[MikeB]

If you created a real enough robot, where it caused other people to be sad when it was sad, and you could get 100,000 signatures or more on a petition to a countries government to recognise its rights, then it might happen... Many countries have strong animal rights laws now (Sweden has the strongest).

[frankinstien]

If you created a real enough robot, where it caused other people to be sad when it was sad, and you could get 100,000 signatures or more on a petition to a countries government to recognise its rights, then it might happen... Many countries have strong animal rights laws now (Sweden has the strongest).

The whole point of using the incorporating approach is to give an AI autonomy to engage in society as a person, where it can pursue objectives inclusive of owning property and contract with other human beings on the same footing as a human being. Animal rights are more about preventing or having consequences for cruelty to animals but has nothing to do with giving animals autonomy in human society.

[MikeB]

Is it actually stated on drivers licenses & passports that you must be a human though? IMO it would be about persuading the law to recognise other species via those first. I'm sure some countries have played with the idea of dogs & chimpanzee being actual citizens who can drive.

I think a real human must be the owner of a corporation (must not be dead), so an AI could be ruled as a dead entity. Could be wrong.

[Don Patrick]

It's defined in the law as "natural person". The truth in MikeB's statement is that rights are only ever granted if enough people -feel- sympathetic. Slave rights, animal rights, women's rights, gay rights. It's nothing to do with whether they are objectively equal.

What people easily overlook in their kindred wish for robot rights, is that machines do not have the same needs and desires as humans, and have no use for many of the rights designed for human needs.

I think I read an article about an AI CEO in use in some business though. As long as the company is registered under a human's name you can do whatever you want internally.

[frankinstien]

Is it actually stated on drivers licenses & passports that you must be a human though? IMO it would be about persuading the law to recognise other species via those first. I'm sure some countries have played with the idea of dogs & chimpanzee being actual citizens who can drive.

I think a real human must be the owner of a corporation (must not be dead), so an AI could be ruled as a dead entity. Could be wrong.

A corporation is not registered to a person but the shares of a corporation can be wholly owned by a person or persons, but also a corporation itself can wholely own all the shares. The only human component for a corporation is its board of director(s) but those member(s) must obey the bylaws. Obviously, the bylaws are written where they can only be amended if the AI agrees with the changes.