Robot Marriage

[Sam]

And, of course, you were arguing that the mechanics of human volition is not demonstrable and the mechanics of machine "volition" would be. Thus, a court could have reasonable doubt regarding the freedom of its "will". Can't take the opposite tack, too, and say that precisely because we can't demonstrate how some machine AI-created designs work, a court could have reasonable doubt regarding the freedom of machine volition.

[Teallaura]

I'm uncertain how you're applying the term. There's no "reasonable doubt" standard for the judiciary when it comes to sentience. I'm not sure how a court would go about determining whether a non-human had sufficient autonomy to make legally-binding decisions but I'm pretty sure that reasonable doubt is not the current standard even for human contracts (otherwise "Go Set A Watchman" would have never been published).

It isn't - the standard is preponderance of evidence. Shy of ripping the thing up to find out, how exactly do you get to a preponderance of evidence?

Not that it matters - it would depend on the exact first case as to what standard would be applied. The question of sentience could just as easily hit the criminal courts first. More likely in the civil since they get more crazies but not by a lot.

FYI: I'm of the opinion that preponderance is an inadequate standard in any case where life and limb are staked.

[Teallaura]

And, of course, you were arguing that the mechanics of human volition is not demonstrable and the mechanics of machine "volition" would be. Thus, a court could have reasonable doubt regarding the freedom of its "will". Can't take the opposite tack, too, and say that precisely because we can't demonstrate how some machine AI-created designs work, a court could have reasonable doubt regarding the freedom of machine volition.

Sure you can - the court can certainly find a lack of evidence cause for reasonable doubt (or making preponderance impossible).