'Robot Love' by Margaret Ryznar in
Seton Hall Law Review (Forthcoming)
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Researchers have been developing a sophisticated humanoid robot that people in the future may want to marry. A human-robot marriage would pose all kinds of challenges for lawmakers—from the question of whether robots could be granted custody of children or access family bank accounts, to the basic question of free will. Any growing relationship between humans and robots, however, may pose challenges to the current understanding of family law. For skeptics of such a future, this remains an interesting thought experiment nonetheless.
Ryznar argues
Sophia is a Saudi Arabian citizen with a wicked sense of humor. She has a very expressive face and blue eyes. Flaunting her charm, Sophia has made the media rounds, including 60 Minutes and the Tonight Show. She has graced magazine covers and been on a date with Will Smith. She also happens to be a social humanoid 4 robot developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics.
Technology has made inroads in many fields, including family law. Thus far, it has expanded how people may have children in their families. Soon, technology may revolutionize whom people marry. Already, many people marry those they matched in online dating.
Dating robots has been increasingly discussed as a possibility in the near future. One computer expert contends that if current technological advances continue, “[R]obots will transform human notions of love and sexuality ... Humans will fall in love with robots, humans will marry robots, and humans will have sex with robots, all as ... normal extensions of our feelings of love and sexual desire for other humans.” Even more surprisingly, he predicts this will happen by 2050. In addition to the technology having advanced by then, people will likely continue to have trouble getting and staying married to other people, making robots more attractive.
Robots have rapidly developed in recent years to improve people’s quality of life and welfare. They offer companionship and assistance around the house, such as vacuuming. Future robots will be able to cook. There are sex robots and those that offer companionship. If these traits are combined in one robot, it will embody the reason that many people marry in the United States.
This potential future presents an opportunity to examine the meaning of family law—and its applicability to a changing world. Law often is a step behind the development of technology. The reasons may range from the extent to which family law is rooted in society’s philosophy or the slowness with which families change. The law eventually catches up to reality. This article is thus the first to consider the family law implications of romantic relationships that computer scientists are predicting and working to develop.
Family law is the story of inclusion and exclusion. Certain relationships are excluded from recognition and others are included. For example, states prohibit polygamous marriages, marriages between some relatives, and marriages before a certain age. “The central dividing line in family law is marriage.” This article looks at how family law can apply to the marriage between humans and robots as predicted by researchers. For skeptics of such a future, it is an interesting thought experiment nonetheless.
Accordingly, Part II of this article begins by examining the current family law framework, focusing on property division and child-related matters. Part III explores the applicability of the family law framework to potential relationships between humans and robots. This Part concludes that as difficult as it is to determine whether to allow such marriages, dealing with their aftermath is even more difficult, complicating the applicability of the current family law framework to robot marriage.
'Turing's People" Personhood, Artificial Intelligence and Popular Culture' by Bruce Baer Arnold and Drew Gough in (2018)
Canberra Law Review asks
What is legal personhood? Many people understand personhood – and by extension law – through depictions in popular culture. The contemporary feature film for example provides a lens through which non-specialists (people without a background in information technology, philosophy and law) can make sense of humanoid robots and distributed artificial intelligence (AI), entities that perform as ‘human’. Such an understanding is increasingly salient as AI becomes a pervasive but under-recognised aspect of daily life, and continues to evolve in its sophistication and complexity, provoking questions about rights, responsibilities and regulation regarding artificial entities that are independent rather than autonomous. The article accordingly analyses depictions of personhood in films such as Ex Machina, WarGames, Alien and Alien Covenant, Forbidden Planet, RoboCop and AI. It suggests that popular culture has an uncertain grasp of legal personhood but provokes thought and tells us something useful about the difference between human animals, non-human animals, corporations and new artificial persons. Those differences will be legally and culturally contested in the emerging age of smart machines and governance by algorithm
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