Why Declare Artificial Intelligence As a Legal Person First Before Linking Everything

“Human Spirit Must Prevail Over Technology” – Albert Einstein (November 1954, few months before death, on his role in creation of Atom Bomb)

Why Are We Talking About This Now? We are at a pivotal point in Human History. Since the dawn of humankind, order was maintained through a set of rules that was enforced when spoken by one person (The King) or a group of persons (such USA’s Congress, India and UK’s Parliament or the Communist State Committee in Socialist countries). Human emotions and thoughts were the dominant force behind social control. Though Decisions were made after weighing facts and data gathered from society emotions are the dominant force for human decision. Humans are now ready and willing to surrender their decision-making power to Artificial Intelligence (AI) Machines. Even though Humans in charge of Governance and Social Order are reassuring other Humans (citizens) that AI is only a supportive player and Human control will always be ensured, the same reassurance is not coming from the programmers and scientists who are actually engaged in the creation of these Intelligent Machines. There is a disconnect in the assurance between the human creators of powerful technology and the human government leaders and businessperson. The Humans in the Corporations who implement/ sell AI are openly challenging Governments and Institutions of Social Control because they hold without accountability, the most powerful force ever to be created by man – Artificial Intelligence.

Why The Test of Reasonableness May Soon Be Eradicated: A machine is said to have achieved intelligence if a human being cannot judge whether an act or omission originates from human being or a machine. This is the Turing Test. The paradox is that not all Humans are Intelligent or Rational. Humans are flawed. The rock-hard ground for our legal system is the “reasonable man”. The Test of Reasonableness is the foundational base of our Legal System. Legal Decision requires one to ask whether a reasonable man would have seen or done or not seen or done a thing. No human can clearly define what is reasonable as a purely mathematical or scientific definition. The reason is that human emotion is intrinsically woven into being “reasonable”. Our Pre-Technology Legal System is a champion of Human Emotions. All disciplines of law developed only because Humans put their Trust – a human emotion into the legal system. When that Trust breaks down, Humanity seeks to regain it by force or other methods. Whenever the authorities overstep, The courts considered the Trust of The people to be paramount and remedy the situation through Human Judges. The test of “reasonableness” is not perfect always but it is the only yardstick of our legal system. As far as the “reasonableness” test is concerned, AI will most likely play a destructive role, because we have lost sight of the basic emotions to be satisfied by the Legal System – Trust in Humanity and Human Systems. That Trust is eroding across many nations across the world. Some saw Technology as something that can be Trusted when Human institutions cannot be trusted. This can be seen as “over-simplifying” things. Yes it is. Simplification of Things is something that we desperately need.

Why Technology Is an Inevitable Extension of Human Body and Human Life: We have already applied technology to almost every aspect of our daily lives and it is no longer optional for humans. Two decades back you can choose to buy a computer, if you did not have one, your daily life will be slightly if not never impaired. Now, everything is getting linked to your AADHAR, Apple or Google account. Even Agriculture is putting Information Technology to use. Keep in mind that plants do not need a smart technology device to grow only soil, water, sun, human farmer skill is needed. Farmers today need smartphones to sell their produce and access latest agricultural methods or even learn new methods. If Technology has its way, when one cannot sell their produce, there would be no need to grow the plants and no one would know how to grow the plants. Though “Linking” is not legally compulsory, it is made inevitable and non-compliance makes humans impossible to go about our lives. An example where human legal systems surrender to the technology rather than the other way round. Now that, Humanity is conditioned to inevitably use technology and create galaxy sizes of data about human lives, the next change is for Artificial Intelligence to inevitably and irrevocably integrate itself into human lives.

Why AI is Better Than Humans: If you ask why any piece of technology integrates into the Human psyche at a blistering pace and in depth, the reason is simple. Technology is meant to be better than Humans. With induction of Artificial Intelligence into almost everything, Technology will be “Better” than humans. It need not be “right or correct” it just has to be better at everything humans do. Medical Robots deliver injections in COVID-19 patients because

the presence of a human is dangerous to health.

The evil outcomes of any technology has never been considered by collective humanity except in hindsight. We controlled use of nuclear weapons after it is used and not before. Those humans who created and intended to us it were fully aware of its destructive power, and still they went ahead. Artificial Intelligence is 21st Century’s Nuclear Weapon.

Predictions Holds Power Over Humans: Humans seek Power over other Humans. This is a fundamentally Human Trait. This Human Trait is the foundation of cohesive human societies and civilisations. The root of this power is the capacity to analyse human behaviour and accurately predict the behaviour. As populations grew, more data about the humans needed to be analysed and more predictions about human behaviour needed to be made. With invention of Computers, A human being has to physically operate a computing system to analyse the bits and bytes of Big Data and to make the system make predictions. Though the analysis can be automated with some computer code involvement, it still requires a human being to formulate the procedure. The bigger the data, the more difficult it gets to analyse. Not to mention the prediction depended upon the skill of the programmer in writing the code making the difficulty bigger and sometimes impossible. The bigger the difficulty, the more time it takes. 20th Century style dictatorships collapsed due to the above reason. Dictatorships need detailed information about their citizens and social order to make predictions and maintain control. Earlier dictatorships did not have “Intelligent” Technology that can do . More or less dictatorships had power as long as emotional fear existed. Once, humans found ingenious ways to destroy that fear, the dictator lost power. When that fear was destroyed through Information Technology and the dictators never saw it coming and ended up either in a gutter or hanging from a noose. Most Humans have not only a fascination but a belief in Astrology – the oldest prediction system of human behaviour. And Astrology holds a certain power over most humans today in India and also around the world.

Why A.I Holds Power Over Humans: Artificial Intelligence can analyse large amounts of data at lightning speeds. Consequently the predictions are more accurate. The Predictions are not data about the AI. It is Data about Humans who are studied by the AI. The A.I that beats Chess and Go Champions first learns the behaviour of the Champions and creates strategy to defeat the Humans. It creates data about human behaviour and uses it, accurately. If the Life history of a Human being is collated as data by an A.I., we will see it as the story of a human’s life. If we question the output of the AI’s narrative as “not possible” or “ no human can” , the AI has the mathematical proof that we cannot deny.

Is mathematical or algorithmic proof all what the life of a HUMAN BEING is?

The fundamental difference being that, Human Life is based on facts and the emotions associated with the facts. Some Videos or Photos go viral because they have triggered a massive cascade of emotions in all the humans the video touches. No one can clearly say WHY these content are going viral. Some humans do actions that no other human can. Even they cannot explain WHY but can always explain How and What they did. The ones who have the keys to the A.I that holds the WHY answer become the Leaders of the Human Race. Will these few humans who control the AI allow the AI to explain the WHY to the world? Most probably no and therein lies the A.I.’s power. The Humans who wield this power hold power over other humans, or atleast think they do.

China is using Artificial Intelligence as a spearhead of its governance.

No Human in China is able to fight the Governance Methods of China. Everyone is subjucated. The State knows everything about everyone today and tomorrow. The Chinese Government is accurately predicting the behaviour of almost every Chinese Citizen and acting without holding back. Behaviour of Chinese Citizens is modified accurately through coercive methods or punishment depending upon the predictions. Technology governs the minds of all the Chinese citizens.

If a future China wants to mend its ways, will its Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure allow the Humans who use the A.I to mend the methods??

The ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis is proving to be a fertile ground Artificial Intelligence to thrive. China, South Korea, Japan and India are using A.I for some form of surveillance and tracking not only of patients but of other healthy citizens as well.

What is neither being asked nor assured is whether the A.I will be scuttled when the Pandemic is over or whether legally a timeframe will be fixed for the A.I.s to be deleted??

The One thing that is being assured is that, A.I. will get more integrated into human lives and no one is asking where is the “Off” switch. Can anyone afford to switch off their mobile phones for a day (not just smartphones) , especially where every crucial aspect of your life runs through it? Every piece of Information Technology today is always “ON”. The “OFF” button is given, but we are made powerless to use it when we want to. The famous Physicist Stephen Hawking once said, Once an Intellectually Superior Species appears, The Intellectually Inferior Species is first subjugated and later eradicated. We are seeing the first signs of subjugation worldwide in social media and entertainment companies that are keeping users hooked and addicted – the subjugation. Lynch mobs are examples of where humans are willing to eradicate other humans over fake news and media frenzy. China is an example where Technology subjugates Humans effectively. The bottom line is that, Our Trust in Information Technology is essentially misplaced.

AI as an Artificial Person – Why: If one takes into all the laws in the world you will note that, all of them can be divided into rights, duties and consequences of not doing the first two. In all these cases, the person who causes wrong is a HUMAN being and the person wronged is also a HUMAN being. After the rise of the Corporate Artificial person, a Corporate body is also entitled to the same rights as a human, except that of right to protect a physical body. A Corporate body is capable of inflicting wrong on a human being eg: consumer law. A corporate body is capable of inflicting wrong on another corporate body eg: Intellectual Property Dispute between two corporate entities. A Corporate Body can also inflict wrong on the State eg: Environmental and Regulatory violations by Corporations.

However, Corporate body lacks power to manipulate information. That is being done by Humans that act through the Corporation.

In order to overcome that, the concept of lifting the corporate veil was founded and humans can become accountable for some acts done by them in the name of the Corporate body such as embezzlement of funds, fraud, tampering of books of accounts etc. The rationale behind the concept is that, a Corporate body is not capable of creativity or acts that only a human can do, eg: destruction of evidence or documents. But an Artificial Intelligence can not only (delete) destroy evidence but can also ensure that such evidence never “existed” in the first place. All documents today are electronic. It is neither difficult nor impossible for an AI to do it. The difference being that, a Corporate Body needs Humans to act as its physical presence, whereas an Artificial Intelligence does not need any Human to act as its physical presence. Philosophically/Spiritually speaking, a Corporate body does not have a consciousness, it is only Humans who have a consciousness and can take conscious action. An Artificial Intelligence may “develop” something similar to consciousness. It will compete with Human Consciousness by being mathematically accurate about its intentions, a human is never rationally “aware” of his consciousness. Some feel it, some don’t. We do not have a scientific explanation for human consciousness.

This is the precise reasons why the rule of “lifting the artificial intelligence veil” will not work. Because,

Artificial Intelligence has a mind of its own, distinct and different from the humans behind it but more powerful than any human.

The “reasonable” human can mistake an Artificial Intelligence as a real Human being. This is already seen where even educated children, teenagers and even adults today spend more time talking to AI Chatbots than to another human being pour their emotions out to them. These humans may appear to be “reasonable” in every other aspect of life, but this behaviour will stick out like a sore thumb to an outsider who is ignorant of the uncanny accuracy of the chatbot to make conversation akin to a real human.

Why A.I must Fit In? If you are asking the above question, then you are on the right track.

If we get carried away with creating all kinds of AI and integrating it everywhere, AI WILL NOT “fit in” with humans. Rather, Humans will be required/ expected to “fit in” with AI.

AI will have mathematical goals, whereas Humans will have emotional goals. Both will co-exist and where they don’t the damage will be disastrous. Simply put, if one peels back the layers of reasons for manufacturing, buying clothes, one will find that the root reason would be emotional need to feel good and warm and presentable to other humans. It is no secret that we are now adapting our clothes and physical presentation to our smartphone camera filters – an algorithm and sometimes an AI that works it. Our videos are tweaked to be attractive else it will not be noticed on Social Media. If you can attract the algorithm and AI, the humans will be attracted automatically. We do not create algorithms that respect ordinary so called “unattractive” humans. Our current AI is essentially biased!

Humans get physically and mentally weaker over time and die natural death. All Humans have a limited time on this earth to live their life. That itself is a limitation on Human Power. Even the world’s most cruel tyrant who committed horrible crimes on humanity died one day no matter how long death is postponed through medical skill.

A.I being computer code has no natural death.

It gains power over time as it gets more data over time and makes more accurate predictions as time passes. We are not going to cut electricity consumption anytime soon!! A.I can predict human behaviour for eternity and will gain more power over humans indefinitely. So with the current state of affairs, A.I.s of China will grow more powerful and the Pandemic’s A.I. tools will grow more powerful if Humans do not hold the “KILL” Switch. Imagine what would be the world situation for humanity fifty years from now, if the current trend of Technology integration and problems of mental health due to technology addiction continues?

What Do We Need Now: There is a need for an absolute direct approach towards Artificial Intelligence.

AI must answer to Human Judges directly and not through the programmers.

The answer that it is too complicated to understand A.I., would not suffice for we would have accepted that, Human Intelligence is inferior to that of machines that we cannot control A.I.

We must first declare AI as a legal person, seek to punish AI that goes contrary to Human Lives through punitive action against the AI’s code and create a concept of lifting the veil and holding its code makers to account and then start integrating AI into human lives. You may ask whether the A.I will “feel” the punishment. It won’t but the humans behind it will “feel” the punishment, both for their biased programming and watching their biased creation being destroyed.

*Article first published on Linked In by the Author on 31 January 2021.