Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan

Here is the actual draft:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europarl.europa.eu&#x2F;sides&#x2F;getDoc.do?pubRef=-&#x2F;&#x2F;EP&#x2F;&#x2F;NONSGML+COMPARL+PE-582.443+01+DOC+PDF+V0&#x2F;&#x2F;EN" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.europarl.europa.eu&#x2F;sides&#x2F;getDoc.do?pubRef=-&#x2F;&#x2F;EP&#x2F;&#x2F;...</a><p>It&#x27;s just a report to the European Parliament, and as far as I can tell was never discussed, voted on, nor did it go anywhere. However it did generate 10+ pages of Google search results for articles of the &quot;what are those crazy Europeans up to now&quot; kind. It&#x27;s another curved banana story (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;1&#x2F;hi&#x2F;world&#x2F;europe&#x2F;6481969.stm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.bbc.co.uk&#x2F;1&#x2F;hi&#x2F;world&#x2F;europe&#x2F;6481969.stm</a>).

It appears the main motivation here is to maintain the same level of taxation on a business that switches from human to robot workers for a significant part of the labour undertaken.

How do they even define a robot? Is an asea automatic welder a robot? A pick-and-place unit?<p>I&#x27;d be more than happy to postpone this question until the robots ask to be recognized as persons, until then the robots that I see are more like powertools able to do repetitive jobs with a high repeat accuracy. They are not &#x27;persons&#x27; in any way that I recognize (but that may change, we are simply too far away from that to spend time on this right now).

I can&#x27;t tell what this is supposed to mean. Taxing employers for using robots as if they were human employees might be a good idea. But giving robots &#x27;rights and obligations&#x27; as if they were human is totally insane.

This is an interesting idea. Robots don&#x27;t need to have human rights. They can have &#x27;robot rights&#x27;. In Bolivia, for example, there are rights of nature (applies to living and non-living things) [1]. There is also a strong advocacy for animal rights. The concept of &#x27;right&#x27; doesn&#x27;t only apply to humans.<p>Corporations have rights of &#x27;artificial persons&#x27;, which are not identical to rights of &#x27;natural persons&#x27;. There are differences, like:<p><pre><code> - Corporations can be owned (enslaved), bought and sold. Humans can only be rented (a job, service). - Corporations have tax advantages (deductions, deferring taxes on foreign income etc.) that regular humans don&#x27;t have. - Corporations don&#x27;t go to prison; they just pay fines when they break the law. - Corporations can easily become citizens of most other countries through subsidiaries, while humans cannot easily do that. </code></pre> .<p><pre><code> [1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Law_of_the_Rights_of_Mother_Earth</code></pre>

People are missing the point of robots.<p>Robots have the potential to give us what we&#x27;ve always wanted but could never ethically achieve: slaves. We want capable beings to do our bidding. To serve us, to build for us, to obey us. If we follow some nonsensical robotic social justice, we can lose this.<p>This type of stipulation is also an example of innovation-hindering regulation, and what a surprise, it&#x27;s coming from the bureaucratic EU. Social security payable by robot owners. If I&#x27;m smarter and use something to compete more efficiently and productively, I&#x27;m penalized. Socialism in a nutshell: take from the bright, redistribute to the dim.<p>&quot;But this time it&#x27;s different!&quot; We didn&#x27;t tax the first people to create and operate the drill press, the lathe, or the milling station. Or the sewing machine for that matter.

I agree with VDMA, the proposal is too complicated and too early. The proposal looks like half baked brainstorming. I like the fact that the proposal is too far forward looking. It&#x27;s better to think these issues 100 years too early than 100 years too late.<p>Take for example taxation effects<p>&gt; 23. Bearing in mind the effects that the development and deployment of robotics and AI might have on employment and, consequently, on the viability of the social security systems of the Member States, consideration should be given to the possible need to introduce corporate reporting requirements on the extent and proportion of the contribution of robotics and AI to the economic results of a company for the purpose of taxation and social security contributions; takes the view that in the light of the possible effects on the labour market of robotics and AI a general basic income should be seriously considered, and invites all Member States to do so;<p>The underlying issue is that the balance between two factors of production is changing. Robots are capital assets and and workers are human capital. Capital assets are replacing human capital.<p>There is absolutely no reason to treat robots different from other machinery and introduce new reporting for the purpose of taxation and social security contributions. There are more straight-forward ways to move taxation burden from human capital to capital.

Robot rights make sense to prepare for a time when there is rough intellectual parity between humans and robots and the possibility of an adversarial relationship arises. I think it&#x27;s unlikely, but still important, given the impact such a relationship would have. Giving robots human rights now would be like giving an ant human rights, but it makes sense to give rights in accordance with some measure of intelligence I think.

I misread that as &quot;daft plan&quot;, and actually, it&#x27;s still accurate.

If I&#x27;m a factory worker that gets replaced by a robot, I want a cut. :) But I can&#x27;t think of how to structure the law so that the company has to lease the robot through the employee they are replacing.

The article does a bad job explaining that this is just a draft by one committee in the europarliament, and unlikely to get anything resembling majority support anywhere.

What if the robot becomes CEO?