United States v. AI

Susan Fonseca-Klein, J.D.

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III. Definition

A modern interpretation defines AI as “the study of the design of intelligent agents.”[1]However, a legal definition of artificial intelligence, for purposes of individual rights under the law, has yet to be addressed.

Word definition and usage can and does change as society evolves and reinterprets or reinvents terms and phrases to better suit and better reflect itself. As Dr. Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google, Inc., noted: “The way I tried to define the field was to say AI is building the best possible programs.”[2]

Dr. Ben Goertzel, CEO of Novamente LLC, explains AGI as follows: “…there is a problem any time you use English terms, or terms in any natural language, to describe technical concepts ... Having said all that, what I think of as artificial general intelligence is a system that can solve a variety of different problems, some of which may never have been thought of by the programmers who created the system.”[3]

The field of AI is somewhat controversial among researchers and bio-ethicists, engineers and secular scholars as different schools of thought view the subject in varying ways. Even the goals are changing as AI and AGI take on a clearer reality of sooner-rather-than-later achievement.

In like manner, the issue of legal status for AGI surfaces as a topic of valid discussion. While speculation and uncertainty exist over how the first court will rule on AGI’s legal status, the following questions can be theoretically examined:

Will terminology or sentience support legal standing in court for AGI?
Will judges rely on scientific definitions of AGI when deciding the issue of consciousness?
Can judicial officers expand constitutional definitions of “person” and “citizen” to include a new non-biological life form or AGI?[4]

The core question underlying legal analysis of the terms person and citizen within the U.S. Constitution and scientific usage and definitions of AGI is to test whether federal protection is limited to humans (i.e., biologically evolved entities) or does it apply broadly to other advanced life forms.

IV. Experts/Organizations

Today there are a number of organizations addressing the creation, impact and influence of AGI on humanity. Among these organizations we find the following:

KurzweilAI.net
The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI)
Artificial General Intelligence Research Institute (AGIRI)
Terasem Movement, Inc.
American Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)
The Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET)

Luminaries in the field of AI have and continue to analyze and debate the effect the first AGI will have on future societies. These experts and visionaries include: Marvin Minsky, Peter Norvig, Rodney Brooks, Ray Kurzweil, Vernor Vinge, Eric Baum, Ben Goertzel, Josh Stores Hall, Wendell Wallach, Hugo de Garis, Pai Wang, Stan Franklin, James Halprin, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Stephen Omohundro, Robert A. Freitas Jr., Hilary Putnam, Peter Voss, James Hughes and Nick Bostrom.

Exponential advances in AI raise legitimate concerns among the scientific, philosophical, legal, religious and medical communities. Efforts toward information sharing and program safeguarding are priorities today of equal or higher consideration than the research itself. However, one phenomenon holds true: the first thinking machine will likely be developed in this generation.

As such, specific questions and topics of debate include those presented at the 2006 AGIRI Workshop:

What if AI does not share man-made goals?
What if AI does not need humans?
How will it be possible to preserve AI integrity (keep AI “friendly”)?

Surrounding these fundamental questions are legal and ethical considerations as well, including:

Does a thinking machine have constitutional and legal rights?
Is AI bound by legal duties?
Can humanity and AI share constitutional freedoms or will a new legal framework be required?
Can the legislative and judicial branches catch up to runaway technology and greater-than-human intelligence?

AGI’s effect on humanity is speculative, and perhaps current debate surrounding AI is a futile attempt to determine what is next in the evolutionary chain. However, the impact, both good and harmful, of AGI will be significant.[5]

Footnotes

1. See Computational Intelligence: A Logical Approach by David Poole, Alan Mackworth & Randy Goebel. (Oxford University Press 1998); Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig; What is Artificial Intelligence, John McCarthy (AI “is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs."). "’Intelligence’ is defined as the capacity to adapt under insufficient knowledge and resources. Concretely, an intelligent system should be finite and open, and should work in real time.” Pei Wang http://nars.wang.googlepages.com/home and http://www.agiri.org/wiki/What_is_AGI

2. Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (SIAI) Interview Series - Peter Norvig (9/2007). Transcribed by Drew Reynolds, People Database Project. http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people/index

3. SIAI Interview Series - Ben Goertzel (9/2007).

4. Already sufficient argument exists for a re-definition of “personhood.” (Michael D. Rivard, J.D., Constitutional Personhood, Terasem Movement Symposium (December 10, 2006).

5. See Terasem Movement’s Annual Colloquium on the Law of Transhuman Persons where leading futurists, inventors and scientists gather annually to discuss both legal and practical implications surrounding creation of AGI. See also SIAI’s annual Singularity Summit and AGIRI’s First Scientific Workshop on Artificial General Intelligence.

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