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Europe's Robots To Become 'Electronic Persons' Under Draft Plan (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Yahoo News: Under the European Union's new draft plan, Europe's growing army of robot workers could be classed as "electronic persons," with their owners liable to paying social security for them. Robots are only becoming more prevalent in the workplace. They're already taking on tasks such as personal care or surgery, and their population is only expected to rise as their abilities are expanded with the increased development of new technologies. A draft European Parliament motion suggests that their growing intelligence, pervasiveness and autonomy requires rethinking everything from taxation to legal liability. The draft motion called on the European Commission to consider "that at least the most sophisticated autonomous robots could be established as having the status of electronic persons with specific rights and obligations." It also suggested the creation of a register for smart autonomous robots, which would link each one to funds established to cover its legal liabilities. Patrick Schwarzkopf, managing director of the VDMA's robotic and automation department, said: "That we would create a legal framework with electronic persons -- that's something that could happen in 50 years but not in 10 years. We think it would be very bureaucratic and would stunt the development of robotics," he told reporters. The report added that the robotics and artificial intelligence may result in a large part of the work now done by humans being taken over by robots, raising concerns about the future of employment and the viability of social security systems. The draft motion also said organizations should have to declare savings they made in social security contributions by using robotics instead of people, for tax purposes.
But what if the robots don't want to be subjected to socialism like this? What if they are naturally libertarian, and prefer a dog-eat-dot meritocratic system of governance where the weak perish and only the strong survive?
Well, their heart's in the right place, but doing this now is... unfathomably stupid. By the time such a measure would actually be warranted, there will already be massive civil unrest due to the labor market ending, and having such legislation now will only make it worse. It's like they want us to start a war against robots.
But what if the robots don't want to be subjected to socialism like this?
Well if they are classed as persons then they presumably get to vote as well and can elect right wing robot politicians....and before you say that will never happen we used to have one here in Canada called Stephen Harper.
The question is, who will they export product to. The game has be going for some time and the economic collapse of that insane greed is growing. Seriously why have a country producing product that the majority of it's own citizens can not afford, to export it to another country whose citizens are rapidly losing employment and soon will also no longer be able to afford that product and then you want to ramp up that collapse with robots and no one can afford anything any more and to survive, what, they will have to hunt and eat the rich (robots are not edible). You do see that the current game is a dead end, an inescapable dead end, unless radical changes occur.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
This is a ploy to make copyrights eternal, by assigning authorship to "electronic persons", which can be repaired and upgraded indefinitely.