artificial intelligence

I’d like a good, readable resource on how Artificial Intelligences might be treated by the law.

I don’t need one, alas – but it’s an interesting topic. I mean, surely a lawyer or three has sat down and thought out the legal implications of the existence non-human sapient beings, and how they would interact with existing case law. The resource doesn’t have to be exhaustive; I’d be happy if it was an overview that wasn’t dull reading.

…I have odd hobbies.

There are elements of Thomas the Tank Engine…

…that are, bluntly, unnerving from a Artificial Intelligence viewpoint. My wife can expound on this a lot more profoundly than I can – she’s the roboticist in the family; I’m the drunken poet – but even I can notice the matter-of-fact way that the engines in that universe seem almost indifferent sometimes to their impending demises. I grant that (to paraphrase Spider Robinson) if we want AIs to have a survival reflex we’re going to have to program one into them… but it’s still kind of disturbing, or possibly even creepy. Then again, what if the engines started reacting to their incredibly dangerous environment appropriately? – and it is dangerous. The British authorities should have swept in and seized the railroad system as being a constant risk to life and limb, given the number of derailings, crashes, and accidents that happen more or less routinely.

(pause)

What? I have kids.