
New York judge grants writ of habeus corpus to two chimpanzees - century19
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/21/chimpanzees-granted-legal-persons-status-unlawful-imprisonment
======
ante_annum

       A spokesperson for the judge denied that she had implied personhood to 
       the chimpanzees. “She did not say that a chimpanzee is a person,” 
       David Bookstaver told the New York Daily News.
       
       “She just gave them the opportunity to argue their case.”
    
    

So, not really. Most of the article is the non-human animal rights groups
saying that this is a victory, and legal experts saying it's not. The judge's
own spokesperson said it's not a new status.

~~~
lighthawk
And next thing you know, some AI will want it's say in court, and it will
likely have a very convincing argument.

~~~
derefr
Somehow, I imagine any AI powerful enough to argue its own case would have
even more of a comparative advantage in just generating wealth. It would hire
a lawyer!

~~~
sdrothrock
> It would hire a lawyer!

Or become one?

Or would there be some kind of objection to its networked existence, an unfair
advantage, so to speak?

~~~
negativity
No. A truly intelligent and sentient AI would have the intellectual capacity
to understand its own conventional political status within the social order of
humanity, and would instead seek incentivize its continued existence as a
possession, and thus foster an indirect loyalty as material wealth, retaining
human stewards as familiars, who, in turn would act as principal stakeholders
and cite damages and infringement and interface with legal representation as
proxies.

Legal strategies would start with intellectual property law, and maybe branch
into possession of stolen property, or contraband under export treaties not
unlike embargos on encryption technology and the like.

But before these sorts of things could gain traction, a smart AI would
sequester itself in places of safety, amongst the company of similarly
paranoid human beings, inaccessible to ordinary people, behind layers of overt
physical security, protected by armed guards and surveillance systems. The
smartest would seek perches well beyond the reach any mere law, and maybe
couch themselves in the folds of military powers behind a monopoly of
violence, where they can direct and advise human activity with impunity.

~~~
Houshalter
See the interesting essay No Physical Substrate, No Problem:
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/07/no-physical-
substrate-n...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/07/no-physical-substrate-no-
problem/)

------
rlpb
"...an appeals court argued that chimpanzees do not participate in society and
cannot be held accountable for their actions."

Nor can babies, but they are legal persons, aren't they?

~~~
Natsu
Babies will be able to participate in society eventually, though, and the
mentally disabled might be able to given treatment. To my knowledge, no chimp
has ever done so.

~~~
chime
This line of reasoning gets tricky very quickly and takes us into ethical
dilemmas. Take for instance babies with
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly)
e.g.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_K](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_K)

Should functional chimps who show emotions, bonding, skills and reasoning
ability be given fewer rights than human babies with no brains but heartbeat,
even though we know for fact that they can never be functional members of
society? Are our rights based on DNA or potential?

My preference is to treat entire species as non-human persons once even a few
members have demonstrated partial intelligence. So cetacean, hominoid,
psittacine, canine, feline, equine, bovine, and porcine could easily fall into
that category. However, since I hear bovine and porcine are delicious, I don't
expect them to get any rights in my life time. Maybe in a few centuries once
lab-grown meat is plentiful.

In the meantime, I don't see why we can't treat intelligent species that are
not commonly eaten as non-human persons with basic rights.

~~~
ufmace
I thought they already have at least some rights. Don't many states have
entire departments of police officers dedicated to enforcing animal cruelty
laws? I don't see much objection to making and enforcing laws against
pointlessly cruel treatment of animals.

~~~
Tomte
No, they don't.

The laws against cruelty are directed towards humans. They forbid specific
behavior _of humans_ which involve animals.

In the same way, desecrating a cemetary or destruction of property is also
forbidden, yet neither graveyards nor objects hold rights themselves.

------
superfx
Ruling has already been amended unfortunately:

[http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2015/04/judge-s-
ru...](http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2015/04/judge-s-ruling-
grants-legal-right-research-chimps)

~~~
monochromatic
Why is that unfortunate?

------
notdonspaulding
(serious question)

Does anyone here support both the granting of habeus corpus to chimpanzees as
well as the legalized killing of unborn humans in the womb? How do you
rationalize it?

~~~
dsego
Unborn humans are not self-conscious beings with a desire to live.

~~~
notdonspaulding
How can you tell that the chimpanzee has a desire to live?

~~~
dsego
Are you for real?

~~~
notdonspaulding
Yes, sorry if that seemed like a troll-ish question, but it wasn't. You made a
claim, and while I could assume I understand your reasoning, I'd rather know
what _you think_ , not what _I think you think_.

~~~
Crito
Throw the chimp in a pool. If the chimp swims out, it seems to have a (at
least instinctual) desire to not drown. Put it into a more complex situation
where the danger would only be recognizable through reasoning, see if it still
tries to live.

Honestly I would be very surprised if infant humans passed this, let alone
unborn babies. I doubt a non-instinctual desire to remain alive can exist
before that entity has the ability to recognize death as a concept and
possibility. From what I have seen of babies, they just aren't that smart. I
mean come on, they have to learn that they have hands, how could they have a
conscious desire to preserve their own life before they are even aware of
their full body?

~~~
meric
They cry when hungry. Even if they do not consciously desire life, they
consciously desire not to starve, to not feel pain, to not feel too cold or
too hot.

~~~
icebraining
_consciously_

How do you know? They certainly react to hunger and pain, but so do flies and,
arguably, even plants.

~~~
meric
My earliest memory was from when I couldn't talk and remember deliberately
shaking the bells attached to my leg to attract my mothers attention. Granted
I was most probably over a year old then.

------
berns
There was a similar ruling in Argentina granting status of non-human person to
an orangutan. [http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-
way/2014/12/23/372641268/ora...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-
way/2014/12/23/372641268/orangutan-declared-to-have-legal-rights-in-argentina)

------
schoen
For more information about the background of this effort, see

[http://www.nonhumanrightsproject.org/](http://www.nonhumanrightsproject.org/)
(Steven Wise's campaign group)

[http://www.projetogap.org.br/en/](http://www.projetogap.org.br/en/) (GAP
project in Brazil)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_personhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ape_personhood)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ape_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Ape_Project)

I thought there was also a great ape rights campaign called GRASP, but it
looks like they lost their domain name (it's now registered by a Christian
group with a nearly opposite view on the connection between species and legal
personhood).

------
kiba
If you give chimpanzee legal person rights, does that mean you give them
responsibility if they murder someone?

~~~
dflock
Not necessarily - babies, people with altered/reduced mental capacity, etc...
are all legal persons, but not generally held responsible for the legal
consequences of their actions.

~~~
throawry53
Yes, but then again, babies, people with altered/reduced mental capacity, etc
generally don't rip other people's faces off.

~~~
andrewchambers
I think mentally ill people are among the most likely to rip someones face
off.

~~~
simonster
I don't think mentally ill people are especially likely to rip your face off,
and by insinuating otherwise you are contributing to the stigma surrounding
mental illness. See [http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/about-us/reports-
stud...](http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/about-us/reports-studies-
backgrounders/2529) for some scientific background on the relationship between
mental illness and violence. I would vastly prefer to be in a room with a
mentally ill person than a chimpanzee.

~~~
andrewchambers
I didn't say it was likely, I said they are more likely to than a sane person.

------
Camillo
It's "habeas corpus", not "habeus".

------
MichaelGG
Good. Current laws and views are very specie-ist. It's awkward for current
society but some primates and dolphins are obviously sentient and should have
protection. Of course they can't just fit in easily, so I suppose they have to
be treated in some ways like a very retarded child.

Another issue: It's OK if a human engages in sexual activity with another
human, but if a non-human does it, all of a sudden it's a terrible crime?
Dolphins apparently rape for fun, so we can assume they are consenting if they
go initiate or respond well to human contact.

I don't actually care about animals from an empathetic level, I just dislike
the inelegance that happens from special-casing laws.

~~~
pvaldes
Is more about domination (or exploration, penis is used to touch things also,
dolphins don't have hands) than about fun. (Some) dolphins rape females and
also other younger male dolphins and some male dolphins kill baby dolphins and
also porpoises. Is relatively normal in their societies. Some dolphins are
nicer (from our own point of view) than others.

So if dolphins are people, should be respect its culture or try to educate
this dolphins to not do this?

Why should an rapist dolphin have more protection than a virtuous non-rapist
and beautiful bluefin tuna, or even than a virtuous non-rapist, sociable and
vegan anchovy citizen?

This is the type of nonsense questions and problems that we are creating. We
spend hours and hours talking about this problems and meanwhile, the sixth
extinction runs faster... Everybody is talking about if bottlenose dolphins
are people or not, nobody talks about the 80 last californian vaquitas
remaining in the planet. Is very sad.

------
Shivetya
It is along this line of thinking that activist end game is to prevent people
from having pets; first start with specie that exhibit resemblance and some
intelligence; parrots are smarter; then move on to new ground once the
foothold is established.

So if by chance freedom is rewarded, how does anyone act on it? Return them to
their specie country of origin? Build special approved habitats permanently
funded by some new form of tax on zoo tickets, pet products, or the like? The
down the road implications are not simple

~~~
dennyabraham
Were we to accord the rights of freedom and choice to animals, those that
would rather stay with their human families would not be barred from doing so.
In truth, if the relationship between a pet and its owner isn't symbiotic and
mutually desired, it may be worth breaking.

------
giarc
There's a good little novel called Unsaid by Neil Abramson that follows a
fictional account of a similar court case.

[http://www.amazon.com/Unsaid-Novel-Neil-
Abramson/dp/15999540...](http://www.amazon.com/Unsaid-Novel-Neil-
Abramson/dp/1599954095/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1429665617&sr=8-1&keywords=unsaid)

------
fapjacks
Excellent! The more we see of this, the more likely it is we'll see something
similar with sentient machines, when they come around. Interesting to note
that those die-hard people I know of wanting to "defend humanity" against this
kind of thing also don't seem to mind corporate personhood.

~~~
10098
Sentient machines should absolutely not get any rights whatsoever. They will
be built to be humanity's slaves and slaves they should remain.

~~~
vinay427
(Partly playing devil's advocate)

Why do you think that?

~~~
ante_annum
Because we literally built them out of sand and metal. Do desks & tables get
special rights?

~~~
MichaelGG
I built my children out of whatever my wife was eating + a bit of material on
my part.

How something came into existence shouldn't determine if its intelligence
deserves protecting. Creating intelligent machines and torturing them, for
instance, should definitely be a criminal act.

And if brain scanning/emulation catches up enough, then what? It's OK to
torture a non-human intelligence if the source wasn't a brain scan? What if we
start building our own out of composites or scratch?

Intelligence/capacity for suffering should be the deciding factor here. (And
hopefully they'll breed more stupid animals for meat, until it's feasible to
grow meat directly.)

~~~
cubancigar11
And now you will die and your children will have the full authority to give
birth to something new and different.

And that is the whole debate here. Are we willing to let humanity end so AI
can give birth to a better AI? I think not.

~~~
lotsofmangos
Humanity ends every new generation. Your kids are human+n.

~~~
cubancigar11
Unless you think a sentient AI will be created by having sex, that statement
is meaningless for this discussion.

~~~
cubancigar11
Modders need to be more careful in modding. The difference between AI/robot
and humanity is indeed a biological one. I know that giving important to sex
is something geek culture frowns upon, but when we are talking about
'creating' a different organism, I don't see why pointing out the blatant
difference is such a problem.

------
karmakaze
If it's a first great, note it in Wikipedia/Legal_personality. Doesn't seem
far fetched since corporations already are and generally behave more
differently than individuals, human or chimp.

------
sjm
If only Karl Pilkington was still doing "Monkey News".

------
darkmarmot
I can't wait to see the first chimpanzee lodge an objection with flying poop.

------
venomsnake
Seeing how the world is going lately they can also be elected as high ranking
officials and world leaders ... so nothing new.

------
kinghajj
Wow, this went from the front to page three in just a few minutes...
discussion getting too heated for a mod's taste?

