
Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan - bpolania
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-robotics-lawmaking-idUSKCN0Z72AY
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rwmj
Here is the actual draft:

[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+COMPARL+PE-582.443+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN)

It's just a report to the European Parliament, and as far as I can tell was
never discussed, voted on, nor did it go anywhere. However it did generate 10+
pages of Google search results for articles of the "what are those crazy
Europeans up to now" kind. It's another curved banana story
([http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6481969.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6481969.stm)).

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semi-extrinsic
It appears the main motivation here is to maintain the same level of taxation
on a business that switches from human to robot workers for a significant part
of the labour undertaken.

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RivieraKid
What's the reason to single out robots and not other means of production /
capital though? There's no real distinction between a robot and a drilling
machine, car, accounting software or anything that improves productivity.

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welanes
You raise a good question. In most cases there's a person manning that
drilling machine, driving that car, or typing into that piece of software.

This draft legislation anticipates a secular change in the labour market
whereby autonomous robots displace the need for humans so significantly that
the pool of taxable labour vanishes for good.

Meanwhile economic output increases but there's no taxation system in place
for the government to take a slice. So shift the tax burden to the robots.

It's far from perfect but sure as hell somebody (or something) is getting
taxed.

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pmontra
There is VAT. If the output really increases then VAT's output increases too.
However, of nobody works who's going to pay that VAT? We'll see how it will
play out.

This proposal reminds me of world of Time of EVE, an anime with truly
electronic persons. It's all on YouTube.

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jacquesm
How do they even define a robot? Is an asea automatic welder a robot? A pick-
and-place unit?

I'd be more than happy to postpone this question until the robots ask to be
recognized as persons, until then the robots that I see are more like
powertools able to do repetitive jobs with a high repeat accuracy. They are
not 'persons' in any way that I recognize (but that may change, we are simply
too far away from that to spend time on this right now).

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nxzero
>> "I'd be more than happy to postpone this question until the robots ask to
be recognized as persons"

Using that logic, no human should have rights unless they're able to express
it; clearly flawed logic.

>> "They are not 'persons' in any way that I recognize (but that may change,
we are simply too far away from that to spend time on this right now)."

Assuming no "human like" AI exist already is problematic. What if I told you
that (insert advanced research lab) had AI that's behavior was identical to
that of any random child you might met. Do you believe they deserve to know
about the world, or should they be kept from the world? Do you believe the
world has the right to know about them, or is it okay to keep their existence
a secret? Should the artificial child the same rights as any child?

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yaacov
I can't tell what this is supposed to mean. Taxing employers for using robots
as if they were human employees might be a good idea. But giving robots
'rights and obligations' as if they were human is totally insane.

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Mendenhall
They just want taxes and the ability to control robots "replacing" workers.

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getgoingnow
This is an interesting idea. Robots don't need to have human rights. They can
have 'robot rights'. In Bolivia, for example, there are rights of nature
(applies to living and non-living things) [1]. There is also a strong advocacy
for animal rights. The concept of 'right' doesn't only apply to humans.

Corporations have rights of 'artificial persons', which are not identical to
rights of 'natural persons'. There are differences, like:

    
    
      - Corporations can be owned (enslaved), bought and sold. Humans can only be rented (a job, service).
    
      - Corporations have tax advantages (deductions, deferring taxes on foreign income etc.) that regular humans don't have.
    
      - Corporations don't go to prison; they just pay fines when they break the law.
    
      - Corporations can easily become citizens of most other countries through subsidiaries, while humans cannot easily do that.
    

.

    
    
      [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_Rights_of_Mother_Earth

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zxcvvcxz
People are missing the point of robots.

Robots have the potential to give us what we've always wanted but could never
ethically achieve: slaves. We want capable beings to do our bidding. To serve
us, to build for us, to obey us. If we follow some nonsensical robotic social
justice, we can lose this.

This type of stipulation is also an example of innovation-hindering
regulation, and what a surprise, it's coming from the bureaucratic EU. Social
security payable by robot owners. If I'm smarter and use something to compete
more efficiently and productively, I'm penalized. Socialism in a nutshell:
take from the bright, redistribute to the dim.

"But this time it's different!" We didn't tax the first people to create and
operate the drill press, the lathe, or the milling station. Or the sewing
machine for that matter.

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eli_gottlieb
This has nothing to do with socialism per se, only with the balance of labor
versus physical capital as input factors of production. All existing social-
insurance systems were built under the assumption that production was an
innately labor-intensive process, and thus that setting a payroll tax on labor
would be sufficient to fund the insurance programs, provided unemployment was
kept away from depression levels by other means.

Today those programs face a double-drainage problem: more people are using
unemployment insurance, top-ups for low-wage workers, _and_ old-age pensions
at the same time, while less money is being contributed due to continuing
depression-levels of unemployment and underemployment. Insofar as the EU
expects roboticization to contribute to this double-drainage problem by
shifting the labor-to-capital balance in factors of production further towards
physical capital, they're trying to rebalance the insurance systems by taking
more contribution from the capital side.

In short, they're trying to shift the tax burden to people who have money
available to pay, rather than to people who increasingly don't.

It's a shitty kludge from a long-term public-policy perspective because it
does nothing to _solve_ the conflict over the economic pie between labor,
financial capital, physical capital, and intellectual expertise, but as
accountant-logic, it works out.

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Nokinside
I agree with VDMA, the proposal is too complicated and too early. The proposal
looks like half baked brainstorming. I like the fact that the proposal is too
far forward looking. It's better to think these issues 100 years too early
than 100 years too late.

Take for example taxation effects

> 23\. Bearing in mind the effects that the development and deployment of
> robotics and AI might have on employment and, consequently, on the viability
> of the social security systems of the Member States, consideration should be
> given to the possible need to introduce corporate reporting requirements on
> the extent and proportion of the contribution of robotics and AI to the
> economic results of a company for the purpose of taxation and social
> security contributions; takes the view that in the light of the possible
> effects on the labour market of robotics and AI a general basic income
> should be seriously considered, and invites all Member States to do so;

The underlying issue is that the balance between two factors of production is
changing. Robots are capital assets and and workers are human capital. Capital
assets are replacing human capital.

There is absolutely no reason to treat robots different from other machinery
and introduce new reporting for the purpose of taxation and social security
contributions. There are more straight-forward ways to move taxation burden
from human capital to capital.

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cr4zy
Robot rights make sense to prepare for a time when there is rough intellectual
parity between humans and robots and the possibility of an adversarial
relationship arises. I think it's unlikely, but still important, given the
impact such a relationship would have. Giving robots human rights now would be
like giving an ant human rights, but it makes sense to give rights in
accordance with some measure of intelligence I think.

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wtf_is_frp
The fact that you know you are aware, shouldn't be even possible to begin
with. What I am getting at is that I don't think there a physical explanation
for it. If that is the case, then there is no reason for a robot to have
rights, regardless of how human it seems.

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eli_gottlieb
I misread that as "daft plan", and actually, it's still accurate.

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jacquesm
Most likely a typo in the title.

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tunesmith
If I'm a factory worker that gets replaced by a robot, I want a cut. :) But I
can't think of how to structure the law so that the company has to lease the
robot through the employee they are replacing.

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olympus
Perhaps every robot must be tied to a person, and each person can only own one
robot (or some limited amount). Then if a company wants to build up a robot
workforce they would have to lease from robot owner/operators.

I imagine a model like owner/operator truck drivers working for large shipping
companies. They are paid by how far they drive, but are responsible for their
own truck's maintenance. A robot owner/operator would get paid based on how
much their robot worked, but would have to keep it in working order and ensure
it meets the requirements for the job. The company would save a lot of HR
costs if it leased a robot workforce.

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sampo
The article does a bad job explaining that this is just a draft by one
committee in the europarliament, and unlikely to get anything resembling
majority support anywhere.

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Pica_soO
What if the robot becomes CEO?

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draugadrotten
Then we will have robots doing jail-time in cases like Enron.

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zxcvvcxz
"Your Honor, I swear the AI told me to do it!"

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Pica_soO
Your Honor, i swear that this so called tax avoidance where within numeric
error ranges. We are all feeble silicon after all..

