Expert's Claim That SexBots Have Legal Rights May Have Precedent

A Robot Granted Citizenship By Saudi Arabia Might Have Legal Rights Under Treaties
 
 
Do/Should Sex Robots Have Rights?
Do/Should Sex Robots Have Rights?
WASHINGTON - April 9, 2018 - PRLog -- British law professor Victoria Brooks has claimed that sex robots, sometimes known as sexbots, are sentient beings and deserve human rights - all of this at a time when Barcelona has an operating cyber brothel using sexbots to service eager humans, a Japanese company is selling "child sex robots," and an xxx-rated porn film may soon feature a male sexbot with a "tireless robotic penis."

        But the claim that a sexbot has legal rights may not be as bizarre as it may at first seem, suggests public interest law professor John Banzhaf, whose analysis of the legal problems that rapid advances in lifelike sex robots are already creating for an unprepared society has been reported worldwide.

        He has asked whether we need new laws to extend current prohibitions on the establishment of conventional brothels to those which cannot now be shut down because customers interact only with robots; if society should ban the sale - and perhaps even the use in by-the-hour cyber brothels - of sexbots which look and act like little children; whether programming female sex robots to permit the user to engage in a simulated but very realistic rape will encourage more sexual assaults on human females, etc.

        Indeed, Banzhaf argues, there may be actual legal precedent for according some legal rights to robots.  For example, Saudi Arabia has recently granted citizenship to a robot, and her name is Sophia.

        Although many saw it as a gimmick to help promote Saudi Arabia as a place to develop the type of artificial intelligence [AI] now used to make sexbots act realistically, there seems to be little appreciation for the many legal problems this could also create, argues Banzhaf.

        He explains that many international treaties, which legally bind all signatory countries, grant a variety of legal rights to "citizens of either country," "citizens" of other countries, etc.

        So other countries which already have either bilateral [two party] or multilateral [many parties] treaties with Saudi Arabia just might be required by international law to honor such rights for "Sophia," and perhaps for robots similar to her as well, suggests Banzhaf.

        That's because recognition under international law that a specific robot is a citizen entitled to some legal rights under a treaty might imply that at least other similar robots would have the same legal rights, suggests Banzhaf, noting that a decision that fetus Doe has rights creates precedent applicable to all fetuses.

        As a recent example, he cites the U.S. Supreme Court decision - that one specific corporation named "Citizens United" was a "person," and therefore had certain First Amendment rights - which in effect extended those same rights to many other inanimate businesses and non-profit corporations.

        Indeed, if only "persons" can be granted citizenship, then treaties protecting "persons" in other countries might have to be construed as protecting even robots, suggests Banzhaf.

        U.S. law has long recognized that corporations, trusts, and other similar inanimate and even intangible objects can have legal rights, and may even be regarded as "persons" under certain circumstances.

        Strong arguments have been made that some animals have rights, that a fetus has rights (at least in the sense that endangering or harming a fetus may constitute "child abuse"), and even that certain inanimate objects such as trees may have some legal rights which can be asserted by others on their behalf in order to protect the environment.

        Indeed, even in situations in which the entity entitled to legal protection is in no position to assert these rights, courts have sometimes permitted others to assert and advocate for their legal rights; for example, sanctioning the appointment of guardians for unborn children, or for adults in a coma.

        Moreover, the rights of such entities may sometimes be asserted even if those in a position to assert those legal rights refuse to do so.

        For example, Prof. Banzhaf's law students put together a novel law suit in which the rights of the State of Maryland to recover money Spiro T. Agnew received in bribes while he was the governor of Maryland were successfully asserted, even contrary to the wishes of the State of Maryland itself.

        Stranger things have happened in the legal world, says Prof. Banzhaf, predicting that some individual country or international tribunal may soon be required to confront the argument that a robot like Sophia has certain legal rights, and may even be forced to grant such a robot some novel rights.

        For example, Britain's National Health Service recently ruled that a patient with a full beard and a penis, but no vagina, nevertheless had a legal right to a cervical smear test, despite the absence of any cervix, because he had registered himself as being gender neutral.

        If a person without a vagina nevertheless has a legal right to a cervical exam, why can't a sexbot, which does have a vagina, have at least some legal rights, asks Banzhaf.

        On closely related issues, Banzhaf was the first to correctly predict that the availability of increasingly lifelike sexbots would create new and novel legal problems for society, especially now that entrepreneurs are operating very popular and profitable cyber brothels which cannot be closed down because the "prostitutes" are all sexbots, and manufacturers are making sexbots which can realistically simulate the rape of adult women, or even of young children of either gender.

JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School,
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
Fellow, World Technology Network,
Founder, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH),
2000 H Street, NW, Wash, DC 20052, USA
(202) 994-7229 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/  jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com  @profbanzhaf

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