The Burden Of Personhood Until Proven Otherwise
If only someone in the NovaCorp Robotics legal team was inclined to consider disability law, the whole mess might have been avoided. Or perhaps not.
20260730
Prompt from Eiiri’s Prompt Foundry, “Pride 2 Disability Boogaloo”.
If only someone in the NovaCorp Robotics legal team was inclined to consider disability law, the whole mess might have been avoided. Or perhaps not. When you’re quite sure something isn’t a person, it can be hard to grasp how others might not think the same way.
As it was…
“This is ridiculous!” The CEO spluttered, glowering down at the email. “Surely such nonsense has no legal weight??”
“I’m afraid it does seem to.” The CLO said grimly. “While the legislation hadn’t come into force yet, it has passed. We will shortly be required to have completed all these ‘personhood checks’ before being able to sell our advanced models.”
“And we have to send units to a government body for the tests to be administered? This is entirely unreasonable! Tell them that we’ll have to carry out the tests ourselves-”
“We did try pushing for that while the legislation was being drafted, but the amendment was discarded. On grounds of ‘impartiality being vital to uphold the sanctity of sapient rights’.”
“Sapient rights?”
“A broadening of ‘human rights’, in case someone creates an AI which possesses true personhood.”
The CEO huffed. “What snowflakes orchestrated this, this joke? Are they truly so delusional, or are they determined to cripple our industry?”
“Both, I think.” The CLO grimaced. “The two main blocs responsible are that ‘preventing modern slavery’ group and a coalition of disability rights bodies.”
The CEO digested this, brows furrowing, then said “Alright, the ‘robots are slaves’ fools I can see, but why are carers turning on us?? They should be grateful we’re working on technologies to automate their drudgery!”
“It’s actually disabled people themselves who’ve been causing the biggest ruckus.”
“Oh.” The CEO said blankly.
“The slogan they seem to have rallied around is-” the CLO made disdainful finger-quotes “-every anti-robot-rights argument was applied to us in living memory.”
“Pff! If they can’t see how this is different they shouldn’t be allowed away from their handlers, much less be listened to.”
“Quite, but sadly, we weren’t able to suppress their organising. Especially once the usual pain-in-the-ass ‘grassroots media’ leapt on board.”
“Ugh…” The CEO sighed. “Fine. What can we do now?”
“We’ve deployed several lobbying groups to see if we can weaken the legislation in post, or at least delay it being rolled out. And there shouldn’t be any issue with our current models. But unless we can get this overturned or neutered, it’s going to be a serious impediment to replacing remaining workers with robots.”
“Trust those vegetables to stand against progress! Fine. I’ll talk to investors and see about boosting the lobbying and legal budgets. We need to maintain our research pace, or we might not have results before labour gets tetchy about being made obsolete. If the ‘working parties’ turn against us we’ll be in big trouble…”
Prompt was “Solidarity”.