The New Prometheus

If you follow @RadioFarSide, then you know that I've been twisting off on robots for a while now.  This has prompted some readers to ask what I have against robots.

Well, let's start with just about everything, and go from there.  And it's not necessarily against robots, so much as against pushing ahead so fast without thinking things through.

For a little lite reading, there's the story about the "police robot" that was deployed in Dallas, and which killed the "shooter."  Then, there's the repeated stories of driver-less cars crashing, resulting in one reported fatality.

On a Big Picture scale, I oppose robots paired with AI.  The very best scenario here is that humanity will create a race of mechanical slaves.  The very worst scenario is that those slaves get fed up and fight back.

In the best case, artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to become sentient.  At least that's the theory and plan.  Even if that level is never achieved, humans who use the machines as servants or slave labor will grow accustomed to less-than-civil behavior with the machines.  Since they presumably will resemble and act like humans, this behavior will become ingrained and transfer over to interactions with real people.

But we've already covered this ground in previous columns.

More to the point of today's thought experiment is the legal ramifications of this head-long rush to create a new race of machines.

Let's take the car story first.

You are cruising down the highway.  You get tired.  You turn on the AI autopilot and drop off to sleep.  The autopilot fails or makes a poor choice and your car flies off the highway, does a triple roll and lands upside down, and your back is broken.  You are confined to an iron lung for the rest of your life.  Who is liable?

The car manufacturer sold the car as having artificial intelligence built into the autopilot.  This AI system is capable of thinking for itself and learning from experience.  It can even carry on conversations with the driver to discuss routes, road conditions, etc.  The AI is making its own choices and decisions completely independently of the driver or the manufacturer.

After your horrible accident, it is determined that the AI was functioning completely within manufacturer's specifications.  When you bought the car, you were informed of the system and were given a special class in how to operate it.  You signed a release and received a certificate showing that you had received the training.  You owned the car for more than a year and had used the AI autopilot a number of times with no problems.

The AI autopilot relies on Google Maps to navigate.  An investigation showed that the map had an exit that was closed for repairs, but not noted on the map.  The AI autopilot chose to use that exit and ignored sensor data in favor of the map notations leading to the terrible accident.  You obviously received egregious bodily harm due to this choice.

Who is liable for your injuries?  Was it the manufacturer, who sold you the AI system, informed you of its operations, trained you, and certified that the system was within operating parameters at the time of the crash?

Is Google liable for not maintaining its maps with the latest data on closures and construction?  Is the AI system liable for making an independent choice?  Are you liable for having bought the thing in the first place (caviat emptor)?

Can a machine ever be liable for its independent choices?  If so, who pays damages?  Does the manufacturer/programmer have any liability for a machine that is capable of thinking and acting of its own volition?

These are just some of the hundreds of legal questions that come to mind in this situation.  Neither the law nor society have even begun to consider the implications of this technology, yet we are screaming down that highway with hardly a care for any of these issues.

Now, let's look at the "police robot" case.

There is an active shooter situation.  Police have responded to the scene and there are several dead bodies lying around the area.  Instead of risking a human police officer, an AI robot is sent in to remedy the situation.

The robot is unleashed and trundles into the building using its sensors and publicly available floor plans of the building to guide it to the suspect's location.  It crashes through the door of the room where the "shooter" is located.  A figure is squatting by the window with something that looks like a rifle in his hands.  The robot makes no attempt to disable the "shooter," but rather decides on the spot to kill the suspect while recording all of its sensor data.

Later, it is determined that the "suspect" was a janitor hiding near the window to try and figure out what was happening.  He had a broom in his hands.  The police investigators, worried that this incident could turn into a major legal battle lasting several years and costing millions of dollars, decides to falsify the sensor data of the robot.  Using CGI, they modify the video and still photos to show a gun in the "suspects" hands.  All associated text files and decision trees generated by the AI are also modified accordingly and a real rifle was planted in evidence.

In this situation, the AI robot made its own determination on the spot.  It is a machine, and so cannot give testimony in court as a witness, its sensor logs can be modified without a trace and can even be programmed to falsify data on the fly by some crafty programming (kind of like computer voting machines).

Even if the cover up in our scenario is discovered, are the police only guilty of modifying evidence to hide a crime?  Did the machine make its own choice to kill and is it liable for that choice, or are the police?  Can the manufacturer/programmer be held liable for the machine's choices, since the machine is AI and capable of making informed decisions and learning from its mistakes?  If it comes to light that the janitor was a wrongful death, can the machine be punished or held accountable in any way for its actions?

Again, these are just a tiny sample of all the legal, moral and ethical questions that have not been addressed.  In fact, very few voices in the public sphere are even bringing these questions up for debate.  They will become an issue sooner or later.

It is very likely that the drivers of the AI cars will sue for damages.  It is also likely (unless they are complete fools) that the Dallas "shooter's" family will sue for wrongful death.  These and many more questions are going to come to public debate sometime in the near future and humanity has some serious issues to consider.

These are not just legal questions, they are very serious societal issues that we must deal with, and quickly.  Whether we play god by creating a race of mechanical or biological (or combined) individuals, this choice comes with profound questions that we have never answered for ourselves, much less our creations.

These are not dumb objects, but fully autonomous creatures capable of independent thought and volition.  After thousands of years, we seem incapable as a species of answering these questions about our own existence, and into this quagmire, we intend to introduce a whole new species of our own creation that is innocent and unknowing.

All of this can only end badly.  In effect, by not considering these issues in detail before we create new species, we are collectively and individually responsible for the consequences.  This is not like creating a toaster, this is new life, regardless of the form it takes.

It is sad that so few people have read Frankenstein; Or, the Modern Prometheus.  The myriad movies that have been made from this novel hardly do justice to the serious moral and ethical questions it raises.  It should be required reading every year from age 10 on.  It is not a horror story, it is a cautionary tale, and we should be taking its lessons with deadly seriousness.

The Creature

"I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window shutters, I beheld the wretch— the miserable monster whom I had created. He`held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs."  -- Frankenstein; or The New Prometheus by Mary (Percy) Shelley

And so it is that we humans always come to see our creations.  We spend endless hours in pursuit of god-like status, desiring to create perfection that will in turn worship us as gods.  Yet, when we succeed and gaze into the eyes of our creations, we are repulsed and terrified.

Just because we can do a thing, it does not follow that we should.  It is a lesson Mankind has been taught repeatedly, and yet we persist in diving into the abyss with every passing thought, only to be repulsed by the result.

 Humans, in our boundless hubris, have always imagined we can improve upon what has taken the Universe billions of years to perfect.  We look at ourselves and think, "I could be stronger, or smarter, or faster.  If I just tweak this or modify that, I will achieve perfection!"  The problem is that we are mired in materialism, seeing nothing beyond flesh and blood.  We have forgotten that perfection is intangible and cannot exist on the plane of the physical.

Humans continue to seek Utopia despite repeated failures over thousands of years.  It is unobtainable by any standard outside the individual.  It cannot exist where two or more humans come together, since at that point there are overlapping ideas and ideals.

Every human thinks their childhood was less than perfect, so they strive to raise their children in the "perfect" way, only to find that the children are individuals with their own ideas about perfection.  The desire for perfection is so deep that wars have been fought to force one people to adopt another's ideal, much like bringing 'democracy' or 'communism' to the world.

From Plato through Dante to Thoreau, poets and idealists have sought perfection.  What they find is that one man's perfection is another's hell.  Each culture chooses its aesthetic and never the twain shall meet.  And even within a culture and the individual, the ideal changes over time, like fashion and seasons.  It's a case of greener grass just over the neighbor's fence.


Like Dr. Frankenstein, though, no matter how much we strive, no matter how lofty our ideals, no matter the drive of our ego, once we have achieved what we thought was perfect, we find that we are back to where we started.  It is a vicious circle or unending strife and strive.

And so it is with our would-be kings.  The closer they come to achieving their dreams, the more they will be repulsed by what they have created, because withing every creation is the spark of individualism.  No man nor any group of men can ever be subdued and molded into an external image of perfection.  Each person is ultimately self-perfecting within the confines of their existence, but ultimately the individual can only exist with other perfections.  It cannot subdue or submit for more than the shortest amount of time.

Even now there are many who turn to machines or genetics to 'perfect' the human existence.  I cannot last and it will never succeed.  Perfection doesn't lie in the flesh or the genome.  Those are only vehicles by which the perfect part of us imagines this reality.

The Commanche have an interesting saying: You can change the vessel, but the water inside is still the same.  All transhumanist and genetic engineering is doomed to failure.  So many people are focusing on the vessel and not the contents.  Even if the vessel were to be perfected -- an impossible task since everyone's idea of perfection is different -- the water inside is still the same.  When you consider those people who are said to have achieved perfection, they did not do so with bionic limbs, Google glass and genetic enhancements.  They did it by focusing on the contents of their vessels.

Realizing the ultimate failure of those who would force their ideals of perfection on the rest of us doesn't release us from responsibility.  They will harm a great many people with their lunatic experiments and for that reason alone, we must stop them.  They will not practice on themselves.  Rather they will use our vessels to reach their goals, then turn the processes to their benefit.

All the modifications to our selves and our world will never change anything about the human condition.  The real perfection of our selves is not something you can inject, modify or enhance.  It cannot be placed on an operating table nor imaged under a microscope.  It cannot be defined by the senses nor pointed to as a goal.  It cannot be designed, built or painted.

Perfection is a state of mind, an inner realization that we are already perfect.  We can pour the water of our being into any vessel we choose.

Perfection is the sound of one hand clapping.

Mu.

The Cause Of All Lies

EU emergency meeting over Italy!  Syrian protestors attack US embassy - probably pro-government (ya think?)!  Murdock empire in deep water!  Congress, Obama at odds over debt!  IMF orders US to raise debt ceiling!  Final shuttle flight underway!  One in five college graduates unemployed!  Obama wants trillion-dollar tax hike on low, middle classes!  Global stocks slide!  US sticks to guns on ousting Qaddafi!  Girl mob attacks mom and child!  China says US spending too much on military!  TSA agents pat down 6-year-old boy twice!  BP chairman kills Gulf of Mexico, walks away millionaire!


Believe it or not, all these problems have one common and deceptively simply cause, and the solution is just as easy.

person

n. 1) a human being. 2) a corporation treated as having the rights and obligations of a person. Counties and cities can be treated as a person in the same manner as a corporation. However, corporations, counties and cities cannot have the emotions of humans such as malice, and therefore are not liable for punitive damages unless there is a statute authorizing the award of punitive damages.

That is the legal definition of a 'person.'  They have rights and obligations, just like a 'real' person, but they have no emotions and if they do something wrong, there's no one to throw in jail.


In fact, if you win a major decision against a corporation, it simply declares bankruptcy, transfers all its assets to a new 'person', and all the people inside who made the bad choices go home counting their money.  What's worse is that most mega-corps have multiple shell entities, which hold the mother company's debts, but have little of value.  Therefore, on any given project, if something goes wrong and you try to sue for damages, you can't touch the mother company and there's little more than a dried husk in the entity that damaged you.

That is exactly why BP could walk away untouched from the Gulf of Mexico disaster.  The actual 'person' that was operating the well and platform was a Bahamas shell corporation, or something similar, and most of its liabilities were transferred contractually to sub-contracting shell corporations.  It's the same with Exxon's current and past disasters, any of the pharmaceutical giants, or any other 'person' you can think of.


It's all a game of three-card monty, in which you are the loser before you even begin, because they've already hidden the target card after showing it to you.


Read the definition again.  Corporations have all the rights and obligations of real people.  The trick is, they've taken and abused all the rights, and completely hidden all the obligations in a rat hole of unbelievable legal mumbo-jumbo and strawmen.


You can spend a lifetime jousting with shadows and never come close to the heart.  On top of that, notice the key component of the definition.  They are assumed to have no emotions.  In other words, they have no soul, no conscience and no concerns that even approach 'human.'


They are, in fact, the same as drone attack aircraft.  The machine is sent into battle, causing massive damage, and if you destroy it, there's another waiting behind it.  The pilot is thousands of miles away in a bunker swilling coffee and taking lives with no possibility of real consequences for his actions.  If something goes wrong, the corporation simply blames the machine and goes on with its business.


Cold, heartless and completely without any redeeming value that we attach to real 'persons.'  They are strawmen, or Golems.  They are Frankenstein's Monster.


Here's how it works: Megacorp, a Delaware corporation, wants to do business drilling for oil in, oh let's say Indonesia.  Megacorp finds a local shyster, I mean lawyer, pays him a stipend every month and sets up an Indonesian company called a "PT."  The lawyer is made the local head of the company and his office serves as the 'address of service.'  Megacorp capitalizes PT Megacorp Drilling with one million bux, as a loan to the local company.


So far, there's nothing of value in PT Megacorp Drilling.  It's a shell using someonelse's office space and the only operating capital it has is a paper loan from the parent.


PT Megacorp Drilling (the Company) obtains a drilling permit and gets down to work.  The key people are brought in from the parent to manage the operation, but full responsibility rests on the local 'faces' that front PT Megacorp Drilling.  Notice we substituted the 'term' Company, which being capitalized means that it is a special term now, and not the common word we all use daily.


The Company contracts with Megacorp Oil Singapore, Pte, Ltd., yet another shell corporation, to operate the project.  The Singapore corporation contracts with Megacorp Vessels (Bermuda), Inc., to lease the drilling platform and any other equipment needed to operate the project.


In all cases, the money is going around in circles, because they are all subsidiaries of Megacorp, but they operate independently when we look at the whole thing 'at arm's length.'  In every case, there is a 'corporate veil' that protects the key people at the top from any personal liability for, well, anything.


Now, the Board at Megacorp makes some bad decisions in the interest of cost-savings and time-savings.  This causes a chain of events that leads to a blow-out that causes a massive oil spill, which destroys hundreds of square miles of pristine marine habitat.


Natually, the Indonesians are a bit upset at this and want to sue for damages.  They file against the Company in local courts, but find the Company is little more than an empty shell with a big debt to Megacorp for one million bux and a rented office.  So, they go after Megacorp Singapore, Pte. Ltd.  But, the Singapore corporation just supplied personnel who did their jobs, got paid and went home.


So, Indonesia turns to Megacorp Vessels (Bermuda), Inc., but that company just supplied equipment, and according to the contract, it didn't have liability for the operations.


In their frustration, Indonesians turn back to the Company, but find there is nothing of value in it and no legal ties, other than a couple of names on the Board, to Megacorp mother, and the local lawyer just shrugs his shoulders and walks off.  Since the Company was an independent entity and only shared a couple of Board members with the mothership, the Indonesians are left holding the bag.


Oh sure, Megacorp gets some bad press.  Maybe they 'sacrifice' a key player, who gets a nice severance package and a juicy consulting contract, and the whole thing blows over in a year or two.  In fact, Megacorp went ahead, in the meantime, and set up a new PT, so when the smoke cleared they could get right back to drilling in sensitive environments again.


While this is vastly simplified, it's a pretty good example of how 'hide the sausage' works on a global corporate scale.  In fact, this leads to our second word of interest:

1400–50; late Middle English  < Late Latin corporātiōn-  (stem ofcorporātiō ) guild, Latin:  physical makeup, build. See corporate, -ion

The whole thing goes back to Latin, corpus, or body.  In creating a corporation, you create a 'body,' much like the Golem mentioned earlier.

By allowing legal fictions called 'corporations' to exist, and to have rights like human beings, we have created a literal monster that now threatens our very existence.  But, it is also the key to the solution.

Actually, there are two solutions, but one is much more complicated and requires years of study.  The other requires that people retake their governments and simply...change the law.  By removing the law that shields corporations, creates 'corporate veils', and allows lifeless automatons to operate like real people.

Deceptively simple, right?  However, if it could be done, then the real people operating the corporations would become personally liable for the actions of the organization, as a whole.

Furthermore, if you take away the ability for a corporation to set up multiple shell corps all over the world, then they have no way to hide liability or shuffle assets and debts between entities and jurisdictions.

What's the alternative?

Well, for many years folks have been fighting what's known as the 'strawman.'  When you are born (in most countries, now), a 'birth certificate' is issued and filed with a government agency that creates an entity called "YOU."  In fact, you are incorporated at birth.

The secret to using this fact is first, noticing anytime a document uses your name in all-caps, like BERNARD GROVER.  When you see that, then the enclosed information is addressed to your 'strawman.'  

Second, you can never answer your name (especially in court) with something like "present," or "here," or "that's me."  You have just declared that you are the embodiment of your corporation, and you are now liable for anything attached to the strawman.  You must always say that you "represent" the strawman.  You are just the corporate officer in charge of speaking for the corporation.  You con't have any personal liability.  You have a 'corporate veil.'

A Golem

Does it work?  Yes, of course.  Will it get you in trouble?  Absolutely, especially if you are not 100% sure of what you are doing and watch every word you utter.

Here's an example.  You get a traffic ticket and go to court.  When you are talking to the judge, you answer to your name as if it is you.  Then, you start talking about your 'vehicle' and 'driving.'  What you've just done is tell the court that YOU are the corporation, in body.  YOU were 'driving' (engaged in commerce on the roads) a 'vehicle' (road machine used in commerce), therefore, YOU are guilty because YOU (a commercial enterprise) were engaged in commerce on the public roads, and so are liable for the actions of your strawman.

The trick is, you must get the court to acknowledge that you are a representative for your strawman, and that you are answering for YOU, since YOU is mute and unable to speak for itself.

Oh yes, they will give you a ration of shit and do everything they can to foul you up.  Trust me, I know.

So, which option seems more appetizing?  Spending years teaching yourself the intricacies of legal terms and the strawman?  Or putting massive public pressure and governments to change the laws and remove these things called 'corporations' from the definition of 'person?'

All companies must be associations of contract, in which the officers are jointly and severally liable for the actions of the company.  And, a company may only have one operating entity registered anywhere in the world.  Any and all subsidiaries are considered part of the whole for legal purposes.

See how easy that is?  We just solved the world's problems in two simple sentences.