Rights for robots

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Did you yell at your computer the last time it crashed? Did you bang on the keyboard or slap it upside its big one-eyed head?
Well, you'd better apologize to it. Such behavior is so 20th century. Get ready for the day when your computer may charge you with harassment.
A new study commissioned by the British government sees the day coming when computers will have legal rights. According to the report, development of artificial intelligence may produce robots capable of walking around on two spindly legs, talking, washing the dishes, vacuuming the floor, perhaps doing the shopping (or rounding up used wrapping paper, boxes and bows). They may even learn to self-replicate.
"A new class of robots could emerge from work using animal neurons to control machinery," says the report, commissioned by Britain's Office of Science and Innovation. "For example, the hydrot, a machine controlled by rat neurons sealed in a dish spiked with micro electrodes. This 'brain' grows more complex as it learns and interacts with the outside world."
Lawsuits
At work, the day may come when a rat-brained computer can replace its human operator. Then it will start filing lawsuits.
"Short of full and immediate emancipation of robots, robots could appeal to the high courts around the world and make petitions that they be granted ever-increasing rights until granted full legal rights under the law," says the report, produced by the British management consulting firm Outsights and the Ipsos Mori opinion research company.
Will your dishwasher some day demand the right to vote? The authors say it will be 20 to 50 years before this comes to pass. Thank goodness.
With all respect to the British government, we don't think we'll ever find ourselves lining up at the voting booth behind an intelligent weed-whacker chatting with a vacuum cleaner.