There's one important distinction to the citizenship decision for Anna: It gives her citizenship, but no rights. The judge was fairly careful about that. It's possible a law might be passed that says yes, artificials can be citizens, but they don't have the same rights as humans.

For Anna specifically, that's important because while she may not be handed the same rights as humans, she can't legally be treated as either property or a foreign combatant anymore.

Either way, though, it's going to create fallout simply because there are so many who want to maintain the status quo, and there are so many others who want change as long as it's someone on the "inside" who gets it first.

Great job summarizing the consequences of Anna's citizenship while also showing the differing perspectives even among her fellow artificial life forms. Everybody had a distinct voice and personality.

I especially liked Fleabot's Afterschool special quip. And I see that organization with the near ominous initials is still a player in the robosapien rights debate.

Looking forward to the Aftershock and Blowback.

An open letter from Senator Maxwell to the nation


My fellow Americans, you cannot help but have noticed in the news that during the silly season a maverick judge has made a mockery of our flag and country by swearing in a machine as an American citizen.

Now I’m on record in the House and in the press as warning against the sentimental liberal knee-jerk bleeding hearts who want to accord toasters and lawn mowers the same rights and freedoms that our forefather bled and died to win us. The time has come when we must take a stand and say “no more of this madness” before we lose the very democracy that we so love and value.

First off let’s examine the arguments. Pro-citizenship beatniks contend that these robots, these machines made of circuits and wires, are living beings. That they’re sentient and free-willed. That they maybe even have souls. Well for all the talk nobody’s gone and proved it. Nobody can prove it. Sure we can do clever things with what we call artificial intelligence these days but its just clever algorithms and the like offering the illusion of choice and free will. And if nobody’s proved these things are truly even alive and certainly not that they can think and feel and make moral choices like you and me then why are we even talking about giving them rights? We might as well start letting refrigerators start up bank accounts and buy condos.

But if even these parodies of humanity were alive, why does that mean they can be American citizens? We turn back Mexicans at the border every day and deport illegal immigrants because as a nation we cannot afford to take in so many people that will swamp our social welfare systems, add to our unemployment, strain our infrastructure. Why would we want to add in hundred, thousands, millions of manufactured wind-up dolls to take our jobs, our homes, our livelihoods?

And don’t forget, if a robot can be manufactured and sworn in as an American citizen then what’s to stop a million, or fifty million of them being constructed to outvote humans? What’s to stop a fat rich liberal politician ordering up a batch of new mechanical voters for his district to disenfranchise decent folk? What’s to stop machines making other machines that make other machines?

I’m convinced that the Supreme Court will reverse this aberration of an eccentric judge in her irregular court. But that’s not enough. The next time some liberal litigator has a bad PMS day we need legislation to stop them from swearing in some monkey or alien to American citizenship. So here’s what I’m going to do.

Backed by a consortium of concerned businesses and philanthropists I’m launching the Sentient Life Rights Bill. It’ll properly define humans as being organic, born through genetic reproduction, with baseline homo sapiens DNA. Not monsters. Not mutates. Not something cooked up in a mad scientist’s lab or born on an alien planet. Certainly not made up in a machine shop from bits of a Buick. It’ll limit American citizenship to those who can pass the test of being human.

Next up it’ll demand that any simulation of a sentient being, and especially a robot with a so-called artificial intelligence, should be registered and licensed annually just like a car. That means there’ll be a named owner who’s legally responsible for the damage it causes and for keeping it parked right, just like an auto. That owner can buy or sell it just like an auto. And if it breaks the law it can be towed and crushed, just like an auto.

Robots shouldn’t take jobs from humans. It’s bad enough that we’re outsourcing work to foreign countries leaving our own labour force unemployed and our economy weakened. If an owner wants to take his robot to work then it’s the same as him taking his laptop or tool box with him. It’s his choice and his responsibility. But no-one gets paid for bringing their screwdriver along on the job.

So we’ll be making it illegal for a robot to be paid for work, to hold a bank account, to own property, to conduct financial transactions, or to travel without their owner. We’re looking into legislation that will make it illegal to have sex with these machines too, along the lines of the public decency laws about farmyard animals, but we’re still in consultation right now.

Under the new measures each of these bits of equipment will be required to have a self-destruct mechanism implanted. There’ll be a remote detonation code so that law enforcement officers can destroy them, individually or collectively, if they’re a threat to society. We’ll all sleep safer knowing we can trash the robot menace when we need to.

Finally, because so many of these robots are manufactured to look and sound like humans, the law will insist that they all have a distinctive and prominent logo and registration code showing on their faces or whatever passes for one. That way real folks won’t be misled into thinking they’re talking to a real person. It’ll be a destroyable offence for a robot or similar not to display a logo and their owner will receive a fine of up to $20,000 or two years imprisonment.

Now we’re lining up the votes and we’re confident we can pass the Sentient Life Rights Bill. I urge you to contact your elected officials and give your support. Together we can preserve the sanctity of human life and hold back this growing threat to our great nation – for good.

God bless America. May he lend us his might to defeat the robot menace.

I don't think a judge is empowered to make that kind of distinction, to essentially write a new classification of citizenship. Being a US citizen means having the rights and responsibilities laid out in the Constitution.

Now, it may be that granting her those rights is on hold via an injunction until the appeals have all run their course, a process that could take years. Legally, the government couldn't grab her and make her disappear, but neither would they have to recognize her full rights.







I don't think it's a matter of who gets it first so much as who sets a lasting precedence. There is rarely if ever a popular vote to determine who is going to set off a social movement... circumstances thrust someone into the limelight, and history rolls with it. As noted by Hallie, Anna is maybe less than ideal in that she only *looks* harmless, something symbolically and strategically important to those who would argue that robo-citizenship is a dangerous threat lurking in sheep's clothing. An average robosapien who has no great strength or weapon systems would have probably been a more sympathetic choice for the cause, but that's not how things went.

Nobody who's truly serious about the idea of freedom is going to blame Anna for asking for (and surprisingly getting) it. That's not to say there aren't those on both sides who may want to control or manipulate her into behaving how they'd like her to behave now...

It occurred to me as I was writing it that none of them are remotely alike physically either, which I hadn't exactly planned but works well to establish how diverse artificial life is in the Parodyverse.





I obviously don't like to rush developments... but I get around to them eventually.





It looks like it's already under way, judging from the next person who "responded" to the story...

Hallie was right... that didn't take long at all.

I look forward to hearing more from Senator Maxwell's side of the debate, and I look forward to seeing his proposed bill get the discussion it deserves. I'm quite sure many PV characters would enjoy the chance to discuss politics with the good Senator as we move forward in this great nation of ours...

An well-written opening salvo to the Great Robo Sapien Rights Debate storyline circa 2010.

Now, the real challenge is, can someone post an argument that attacks the idea of granting robosapiens the right to vote just as vehemently from a "liberal" perspective?

There was a misunderstanding in the reply - I didn't mean the judge took away or redefined rights, I mean she simply failed to grant Anna specific rights and just offered her citizenship. What that citizenship means (to an artificial) is up to the lawmakers - they could choose to redefine it so there's one set of rules for humans and another for artificials. Anna's rights change if the laws change. The important thing right now is that the government can't arrest her with the claim she's illegal anymore.

The clever part of that is the judge's decision will be harder to overturn that way because it doesn't grant any very specific rights that can be overturned easily. At any appeal, that's what Arnie can argue - that the decision is face-value and makes no claims about Anna's rights.





The problem with appeals is they have to prove there's no legal basis for the decision, or that the procedure was flawed. Judges generally have the power to swear in citizens that meet simple criteria, and marry people that meet certain criteria. Any appeal would have to prove that Anna didn't meet at least one of the requirements, or that procedure wasn't followed.

Side note: If Anna would have tried to marry for citizenship, one of the requirements is a blood screening - since she can't get one (her body fluid isn't compatible with human blood tests) *that* would be grounds for an appeal.

It's basically a gap in the system the judge took advantage of, it's something lawmakers never foresaw being used that way. They'll probably fix it by passing a new law, but in the mean time it's working for the purpose it was intended for.





Anna's personality had a *lot* to do with getting citizenship. She didn't speak out of turn, or get angry, or do anything basically that a scared human in court wouldn't do. Her behavior was familiar enough that it generated a lot of sympathy vs the faceless and unsympathetic U.S. Government, which people love to hate.

A Public Statement from Congresswoman Alma Marshall on the Robot Issue
From a speech at the Stamford Club


It’s called slutware TM. It’s a set of proprietary programming that makes a human-looking robot exhibit simulated sexual responses. You can go to Pervo Industries or any number of other Japanese and mid-Asian tech firms and order it along with a lifelike android of the gender, color, vital statistics and genitalia you specify from their cataog.

You want your robot to be shaped like a pornstar, or a movie actress, or a nine-year-old girl or boy? No problem. You want your robot to look like your ex-wife, or your next door neighbour, or your mother, or yourself? Just write the check. You can have the robot shipped right to your home, and then you can program its slutware and have it behave just how you want. I hear the shame and rape settings are really popular.

So yes, the use of robots is a womens issue, and it’s a civil rights issue, and it’s an issue of public decency. It’s a defence issue too, since the government’s proposing to spend billions of dollars that could help Medicare and state schools into buying killing toys to shoot other killing toys and espionage units with slutware TM capabilities to seduce third world politicians.

We’re worried now about the guns in our society. We struggle to limit the free use of arms that cause so many deaths and crimes in our cities. How much worse is that getting now with the unregulated manufacture of combat-grade killing machines with no safeguards at all? You need a three-day waiting period to get a streetsweeper. You can buy an ‘industrial’ grade fighting robot right out of the showroom for cash. Robot-related crime rose by 69% last year alone. Unregulated robot sales will be the next serious challenge to keeping our neighbourhoods safe.

And the so-called robots rights movement is a gift to the right. By setting up a straw person to knock down in this sapient AI debate they try to undermine the genuine needs of genuine disenfranchised minorities. It’s easy to win a case that robots aren’t people, aren’t even second class citizens. When that’s used to argue that real men and women aren’t equal and deserving of rights because they’re gay, or from a minority ethnic background, or they’re disabled, then we have a problem.

Robots aren’t bad per se. Pretending robots are people is the problem. Robots can deliver us from drudgery, can release those in economic wage-slavery from drudge tasks and allow them to reach their full potential. But when we try to accord robots the rights of actual people – or try to prove that they have some kind of “soul” in an outdated Judeo/Christian belief system – then we’ve surely missed the point.

For that reason I’ll be supporting the Sentient Life Rights Bill, but I’ll be tagging amendments. We’ll be looking to regulate robot ownership far more closely, perhaps with a tax on registration. We’ll be seeking the right to insist on health and safety inspections to agreed standards and an annual safety test. We’ll impose software limits to prevent the simulated ‘free will’ decisions caused by unpredictable and little understood heuristic algorithms. We’ll demand green alternative power sources for all new manufactured androids. We’ll tighten labor laws to ensure there’s no loss to union employees from use of robots. We’ll insist on judicial oversight of robot production.

If we have a respect for humanity, for the rights of women, for the sanctity of the individual, for the safety of our homes and schools and workplaces then we have to take a long legislative look at the robot issue amongst us. The answer is a new law and rigorous enforcement, proper regulation, and appropriate federal oversight. The answer is a proper contextualising of robots amongst us.

The answer is that robots can never be us. We have to preserve and protect people from robots programmed to think they want to be us.

Good stuff, and a fine entry to shrike's "liberal" challenge. This one is scarier to me because it takes a much more reasonable tone while calling for just as chilling a course of action (or even more-so, what with the "anti-free will" amendment)

...both of these politicians say you cannot prove that robots have a soul, and use that as a key component of their arguments, yet really there is no scientific way to prove that humans have souls either.

~Hat~