Legal Personhood and Robotics: Birth of the Smart Android and of the Biodroid

Abstract

The adoption of legal resolutions or legislative proposals concerning the legal personality of Information Technology entities by the highest decision-making bodies has led to a significant increase in scientific studies on the subject in all disciplines. This sudden interest is a real necessity since, for example, the attribution of the legal status of electronic person to an artificial entity involves a multitude of multidisciplinary issues with potentially significant consequences. One of the legal issues addresses the concept of the birth of such an entity and its definition. As a corollary, the issue refers to that of the consciousness and death of such an entity. This article aims to make a contribution on this issue based on the French legal system. The analysis is illustrated by the application to two robotic entities, one real, the smart android, and the other fictional, the biodroid. By analogy with the case of humans, the birth of such entities corresponds to their first activation, and subsequently, whether they are turned on or off for its synthetic part, their birth is not questioned as long as their evolution is the result of their own development in complete autonomy. Similarly, any modification of their system of thought (including the destruction of this system) that is not due to their own autonomous development must be considered as the production of a new entity and therefore means the death of the previous version and the birth of the new version. These two main proposal are complemented by others that should clarify the issue, especially by defining how smart android and biodroid may be considered viable and dead. It also specifies the link with the status of electronic person.