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Who's Responsible When Your Semi-Autonomous Shopping Bot Purchases Drugs Online?
Nerval's Lobster writes Who's responsible when a bot breaks the law? A collective of Swiss artists faced that very question when they coded the Random Darknet Shopper, an online shopping bot, to purchase random items from a marketplace located on the Deep Web, an area of the World Wide Web not indexed by search engines. While many of the 16,000 items for sale on this marketplace are legal, quite a few are not; and when the bot used its $100-per-week-in-Bitcoin to purchase a handful of illegal pills and a fake Hungarian passport, the artists found themselves in one of those conundrums unique to the 21st century: Is one liable when a bunch of semi-autonomous code goes off and does something bad? In a short piece in The Guardian, the artists seemed prepared to face the legal consequences of their software's actions, but nothing had happened yet—even though the gallery displaying the items is reportedly next door to a police station. In addition to the drugs and passport, the bot ordered a box set of The Lord of the Rings, a Louis Vuitton handbag, a couple of cartons of Chesterfield Blue cigarettes, sneakers, knockoff jeans, and much more.
The distinction comes from the possibility for art to also be something else. I find some automobiles to be works of art, but that doesn't mean that I can drive them any way, anywhere I want, or can park them to display them anywhere I want. Even if I create a car or re-body a car so that it's truly unique, the rules of being a car are still in-effect.
The rules of being a computer program or a device should still apply even if the program or device can also be called art.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I cannot agree with this.
The programmers just set the thing up to 'buy whatever'. At the time, 'whatever' may have simply been a bunch of knockoff handbags. It's not illegal to buy those... the seller may get slapped for violating a trademark, or something - but no-one's going to come rip your handbag out of your hands or put you in jail.
And, quite honestly - the feckin' article tells the submitter 'who is responsible'. If the law says : 'knowingly violated' - they are not responsible. If the law says 'recklessly violated' then there is a case to be made.
But let me spin you this :
>The creator of a device that breaks the law because the creator either negligently or intentionally set up the device to break the law is responsible
If I father a child (creator) and raise it to be... less than respectful of the law... my child then robs a bank. Do they put *me* in jail? By your definition they should...
Another human that you create is not a "semi-autonomous bot". It is a self-aware person, and is held responsible for its own actions. Maybe if you can demonstrate that your bot is sentient and fully autonomous, that'll get you off the hook.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
its interesting to me
non-autonomous bot = does as programmed = good programmer
autonomous bot = AI = you are a programming god
semi-autonomous = it does random shit = bad programmer