Bulletin No. 1, 2021

26 CHINESE UNIVERSITY BULLETIN NO.1, 2021 AI: LAW AND ETHICS It doesn’t have money, it doesn’t feel sorry if it kills a human, and you can’t put it in prison—it’s just a machine,’ said Professor Mik, noting how personhood goes hand in hand with liability. While non-humans like companies have been recognized as legal persons, it is always predicated on the fact that the entity can compensate for its actions, something machines are simply incapable of doing. And in any case, it is unnecessary to hold themachine accountable. ‘The robot has an owner. If the robot misbehaves and causes any form of damage, the owner can pay. And instead of granting personhood to the robot, just ask the owner to take extra insurance. Problem solved,’ said Professor Mik. It is similarly counterproductive to grant machines rights. Earlier in our story, we took a look at the Luxembourg- developed virtual composer AIVA, which has been given copyrights. In theory, it may be justified to make a creative AI program a copyright holder provided the developers and all the humans needed to fine-tune its work are also duly credited as Professor Mik reminded us. Although its output would inevitably be an amalgamation of pre-existing human works as we have seen, the same can be said of our own artistic productions. As long as its work departs considerably from its predecessors by the standard we judge a human work, it could be copyrighted. But again, it is unhelpful in practice to give machines copyrights or any rights for that matter when, ultimately, it will have to be the human user or developer that receives the actual benefits. ‘In a nutshell, there’s no advantage in recognizing AI as a legal person,’ Professor Mik said. ‘Sophia’s just a really nice publicity stunt after all.’ WHILE SEEING HOW MACHINES MAY QUALIFY AS MORAL AGENTS IN THEORY , Professor Erler also stressed the realistic problem of machines being unable to pay for their actions with the current level of AI. But perhaps the real danger of all the talk of giving machines personhood is how it obscures the fact that however free they might be, as both Professor Erler and Professor Mik noted, machines are confined within a larger modus operandi , determined by none other than humans. Whether we are dictating to them what principles to follow or, in the case of AI, let them figure them out by observing how we deal with certain situations, humans are at the heart of every action they take. And above all, it is always us who initiate a task and set their goals. Rather than trying to elevate their status and toning down our role, we should focus on how we can use them more responsibly, starting by knowing when we must answer for what a machine causes. ‘It’s possible for us to feel less responsible as we delegate more and more tasks to machines. Whether it’s justified to feel that way will depend on the state of the technology,’ said Professor Erler, using the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447 as an example. One explanation of the tragedy is that the aircraft’s automated system stopped working, which goes to show that as much as the operation of the modern aircraft has been automated, the system can still fail. Where it cannot be reasonably believed that the machine works all the time as in this case, the human should stay vigilant and be ready to take over. In the crash, however, the pilots got confused, being unprepared for the system’s failure. This is one of those situations where the human user must be held accountable for what the machine does. It’s possible for us to feel less responsible as we delegate more and more tasks to machines. Whether it’s justified to feel that way will depend on the state of the technology.