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Samir Chopra at The Nation proposes that we treat algorithms as agents of the companies that deploy them. In effect, treat computer programs as people, too.
From the article:
I suggest we fit artificial agents like smart programs into a specific area of law, one a little different from that which makes corporations people, but in a similar spirit of rational regulation. We should consider programs to be legal agents--capable of information and knowledge acquisition like humans--of their corporate or governmental principals. The Google defense--your privacy was not violated because humans didn't read your e-mail--would be especially untenable if Google's and NSA's programs were regarded as their legal agents: by agency law and its central doctrine of respondeat superior (let the master answer), their agents' activities and knowledge would become those of their legal principal, and could not be disowned; the artificial automation shield between the government (the principal) and the agent (the program) would be removed.
If such a position were adopted, there could be a significant impact on the permissibility of scanning of emails for targeted advertisements or on ISP's ability to perform deep packet inspection.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by d on Thursday June 05 2014, @06:55PM
Surprisingly (since the title is misleading), this seems to make sense for me. The point, though, is to keep in mind who's responsible for launching the program. It's the NSA people should go to jail for wiretapping, not their programs.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:27PM
I demand Chainsaw Personhood, so that it can be blamed when I go on a rampage.
Then again, many Americans essentially consider their guns as their children...
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:38PM
I think you have missed the point. What you are (jokingly) advocating is the status quo, not what the article advocates.
subicular junctures
(Score: 1) by Angry Jesus on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:40PM
I think this article is really a test to determine who just reads the headlines.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:39PM
I am merely pointing out that in most cases, the person using a tool to commit a crime is clearly the one who gets blamed.
When the NSA programs sort your private life into a database, somehow they get to argue that "nothing happened" until a human queries the result, because nobody is "using" the tool or something.
Which is BS. It's not a virus or a defect, someone intentionally started the program, knowing what it does. That person should be responsible, along with his hierarchy.
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:42PM
And the article is essentially advocating your position.
subicular junctures
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 06 2014, @03:30AM
Yes, which as you were told is the entire point of TFA. That the people writing the programs should be held accountable for what the programs do. Not get to claim that they had no knowledge because of the lack of a human interaction.
(Score: 2) by monster on Friday June 06 2014, @02:24PM
Not really the people writing the program, but the people seeting it up for nefarious purposes, IMHO.
A program is a tool. Unless there is a clear purpose for crime in its creation, the people responsible for its behaviour should be those that set it up in a specific, criminal setup (think guns, robbers and banks. You don't need to set "gun personhood" to find the robbers guilty. Same here)
(Score: 1) by meisterister on Friday June 06 2014, @12:22AM
I think that this brings up an interesting point. IANAL, but wouldn't he be able to accomplish his intended goal by incorporating the chainsaw?
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:39PM
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:32PM
Rampage with a Chainsaw?
Its mainstream in some parts... [thebiglead.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Sir Garlon on Thursday June 05 2014, @07:46PM
Actually, the headline is so stupid it's offensive. TFS is about institutions being held accountable what their software does, the same as they are accountable for what their human employees do. This makes a lot of sense to me because those programs were written by people to accomplish a task. If you think about it for five seconds, programming a computer to do the task should not make the employee, and hence the institution, less accountable than if said employee had done the task by hand.
It's not that corporations are people. It's that they are actors who can participate in the legal system -- file suit, be sued, be punished for breaking criminal law. They are called "legal persons" and this principle is necessary to any complex society: it goes back at least as far as ancient Rome. (Increasingly corporations are trying to claim the legal rights of humans to go along with their legal obligations, and that is new and highly dangerous in my opinion. TFA touches on this but the author is clearly a fascist sympathizer, I mean, the author seems to disagree with me on that point.)
Likewise, this suggestion is not that computer programs should "people," it's that companies should be liable for the actions of their software, the same as they were liable for the actions of their file clerks and bean-counters before computers were a thing. The company would be accountable for what its software does, the same as it's accountable for what its employees do in meat space. It's actually the opposite case -- that the company is NOT responsible if its software commits a tort or breaks a law -- that is radical and incomprehensible.
If accepted, this proposal would finally catch up to the reality that the DISCLAIMER OF ALL LIABILITY AND WARRANTY for software is absolute bullshit in the 21st century. If this proposal does not happen, then companies will pretty soon catch on to the idea that taking humans out of the loop is a great way to minimize their liability and let them get away with screwing the public. In fact, I suspect tech companies already realize this.
Unfortunately this is just some columnist expressing a good idea, not an actual policy proposal from someone who can create change in the legal system.
IANAL and if I were I should be disbarred for sounding off in this manner. :-)
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:43PM
And it would simultaneously kill of Opensource free software.
Today, we accept liability when we install a piece of software. We had it last, and we made the choice.
The developer is absolved, except where you can prove it did something sneaky or intentionally illegal.
Fast forward to your universe.
Why in gods name would anyone release any program if they had to remain liable for any depraved use of same?
Why would anyone manufacture a knife, or the aforementioned chainsaw?
At first glance, using the examples in TFS, this seems initially reasonable. But carried to execution it becomes
ridiculous.
We all know the bargain we made with Google when we signed up for Gmail.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by buswolley on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:47PM
Well. By installing the program, the program is now your agent...unless the seller of the software did not disclose all processes therein....Actually, this should PUSH open source, as companies might find that they are liable unless disclosure of the software is made to the buyer.
subicular junctures
(Score: 2) by Sir Garlon on Friday June 06 2014, @11:34AM
For what it's worth, my intent was to condemn the veil of secrecy surrounding proprietary software: on one hand the vendor knows this is going to be used as the back-end for emergency dispatch or whatever, and then disavows that it's his problem if it fails to deliver any messages to the ambulances. The buyer would be liable for using dud software, same as if they had hired a human phone operator who left her post and was out having a cigarette when the emergency call came in. I think there is no way someone under those circumstances a company would buy software that they can't validate, and there is also no way they would simultaneously accept all liability for its safe operation. So where I think the market would go is, either you adopt open-source software and have to test and validate it in-house, or you buy proprietary software and pay through the nose for the developer to indemnify you.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 1) by dw861 on Thursday June 05 2014, @08:52PM
Agreed. It was not that long ago that females were not considered "legal persons". In fact, if I understand the chronology properly, North American corporations had greater legal person-hood before women ever did.
(Score: 2) by Oligonicella on Thursday June 05 2014, @10:26PM
Bollocks. Define your term "legal person" (which you rightly put in scare quotes). Then give the reasons you have to consider corps has having been more legal persons than women. Shallow hyperbole undermines your argument.
(Score: 1) by RaffArundel on Friday June 06 2014, @03:54PM
Once upon a time, in many states in the US, women could not enter into legal agreements, own property, etc. unless they were widowers. Any such activity was the responsibility of their husband or father. Corporations could, far longer than their had been a US.
Since this was a hot topic during the Seneca Falls conference, I'd assume it was an issue through the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. I vaguely recall that one argument against protecting the civil rights of former slaves in the decades following the Civil War was the "what's next? rights for women?!?"
(Score: 1) by dw861 on Friday June 06 2014, @06:57PM
I can understand why Oligonicella balked at my suggestion, but RaffArundel has it entirely correct.
We can give even more context for the jurisdiction about which I am more familiar: Canada.
The Hudson's Bay Company was chartered in 1670 as the oldest incorporated joint-stock merchandising company in the English-speaking world. For almost all of the area in which it had a monopoly, it preceded what most of us would recognize as modern functioning governments. For most of Canada, the company was both government and the law.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/hudsons-bay-company/ [thecanadianencyclopedia.ca]
Regarding the status of women under the law in Canada. The British North America Act of 1867 did not recognize women as legal 'persons'. Because women did not have the status of 'persons' under the law, women were eligible for pains and penalties, but not rights and privileges.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that women did not have the legal status of personhood in 1928. This was overturned one year later by the Judicial Council of Britain's Privy Council. This significant legal event, known as "The Person's Case" is commemorated on the back of the Canadian $50 bill.
http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/famous-5/ [thecanadianencyclopedia.com]
1929 was not very long ago. Back to the original post that spawned this sub-thread. I hope that sometime in the future, people will be similarly amazed that in our present, bots, programs, etc, were used as proxies for organizations with legal status to avoid punishment for violating rights to privacy.
(Score: 2) by Oligonicella on Monday June 09 2014, @02:51PM
By 1867 women could not be bought and sold. They could not be disassembled and the parts fobbed off. They were not the target hostile takeovers. Corporations could, with legal impunity.
I can dredge up as many differences in favor of women (most holding a higher ethical stand, I believe) as you can in favor of corporations. The original point was that corporations were considered *more* persons and I still say bollocks.