Autonomous Organizations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawn Bayern

Under current business law, it is already possible to give legal personhood, or a very close surrogate of it, to software systems of any kind (from a simple automated escrow agent to a more hypothetical, truly smart artificial intelligence). This means that, for example, robots could enter into contracts, serve as legal agents, or own property. Ultimately, entire companies could actually be run by non-human agents. This study argues that this is not as scary as it might sound at first. Legal theorist and noted software developer Shawn Bayern argues that autonomous or zero-person organizations offer an opportunity for useful new types of interactions between software and the law. This creative contribution to the theory and practice of law and technology explores the social and political aspects of these new organizational structures and their implications for legal theory.

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Roman Dremliuga ◽  
Pavel Kuznetcov ◽  
Alexey Mamychev

This question of AI legal personhood is mostly theoretical today. In article we try to generalize some common ways that existing in legal theory and practice. We analyze some cases of recognition of untypical legal persons as well enacted statements in Europe and USA. Readers will not find a detailed methodology in the paper, but rather a list of criteria that is helpful to make a decision on granting legal personhood. Practices of European Union and the United States indicate that common approaches to the legal personality of some kinds of AI are already developed. Both countries are strongly against legal personhood of intellectual war machines. Liability for any damage of misbehavior of military AI is still on competence of military officers. In case of civil application of AI there are two options. AI could be as legal person or as an agent of business relations with other legal persons. Every legal person has to be recognized as such by society. All untypical legal persons have wide recognition of society. When considering the issue of introducing a new legal person into the legal system, legislators must take into account the rights of already existing subjects. Policy makers have to analyze how such legal innovation will comply with previous legal order, first of all how it will affect the fundamental rights and freedoms of the human beings. The legal personhood of androgenic robots that can imitate human behavior regarded in paper as a good solution to minimize illegal and immoral acts committed with their involvement. It would be a factor that keep people from taking action against robots very similar to people. Authors conclude that key factors would be how society will react to a new legal person, how changing of legal rules will affect legal system and why it is necessary. At least all new untypical legal persons are recognized by society, affects of the legal system in manageable way and brings definite benefits to state and society.


1990 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-191
Author(s):  
Louay M. Safi

Shari'ah (Islamic law) has been the dominant moral and legal code ofMuslim societies for the gnxter part of their history. During the early centuriesof Islam, Shari'ah hcilitated the social growth and develojment of the Muslims,growth that culminaa in the establishment of a vast emph and an outstandmgcivilization. By the close of the fifth century of Islam, however, Shari'ahbegan to lose its role as the guiding force that inspired Muslim creativityand ingenuity and that nurtured the growing spirit of the Muslim community(Ummah). Consequently, the Ummah entered a period of stagnation thatgradually gave way to intellectual decline and social decadence. Regrettably,this painful trend continues to be more or less 'part of the individualconsciousness and collective experience of Muslims.This paper attempts to trace the development of the principles of Islamicjurisprudence, and to assess the impact of Shari'ah on society. It argues thatthe law ceased to grow by the sixth century of Islam as a result of thedevelopment of classical legal theory; more specifically, law was put on hold,as it were, after the doctrine of the infallibility of ijma' (juristic consensus)was articulated. The rigid principles of classical theory, it is contended, havebeen primarily induced by the hulty epistemology employed.by sixth-centuryjurists.Shari'ah, or Islamic law, is a comprehensive system encompassing thewhole field of human experience. It is not simply a legal system, but rathera composite system of law and morality. That is, Islamic law aspires to regulateall aspects of human activities, not only those that may entail legalconsequences. Hence, all actions and relationships are evaluated in accordancewith a scale of five moral standards.According to Shari'ah, an act may be classified as obligatory (wajib),recommended (mandub), permissible (mubah), reprehensible (makruh), orprohibited (haram). These five categories reflect the varying levels of moral ...


2020 ◽  
pp. 25-31
Author(s):  
N. N. Khomutova ◽  
K. A. Vizner ◽  
S. A. Makhortova ◽  
S. N. Chudievich

The problem of the discrimination of people with disabilities remains being an urgent social problem. Misunderstanding of the meaning of this problem by others results in a situation when invalid’s level of life cannot be equal to a healthy person’s level of life. This article raises the issue of ableism in order to explore the idea of barrier-free environment integration. The results of a social survey are demonstrating a good level of respondent’s awareness concerning this problem and their will to participate in a discussion and taking of measures for the integration of a barrier-free environment with the intention to raise the invalid’s level of life.


1957 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-327
Author(s):  
Lloyd Allen Cook

Author(s):  
Christian List

AbstractThe aim of this exploratory paper is to review an under-appreciated parallel between group agency and artificial intelligence. As both phenomena involve non-human goal-directed agents that can make a difference to the social world, they raise some similar moral and regulatory challenges, which require us to rethink some of our anthropocentric moral assumptions. Are humans always responsible for those entities’ actions, or could the entities bear responsibility themselves? Could the entities engage in normative reasoning? Could they even have rights and a moral status? I will tentatively defend the (increasingly widely held) view that, under certain conditions, artificial intelligent systems, like corporate entities, might qualify as responsible moral agents and as holders of limited rights and legal personhood. I will further suggest that regulators should permit the use of autonomous artificial systems in high-stakes settings only if they are engineered to function as moral (not just intentional) agents and/or there is some liability-transfer arrangement in place. I will finally raise the possibility that if artificial systems ever became phenomenally conscious, there might be a case for extending a stronger moral status to them, but argue that, as of now, this remains very hypothetical.


2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-594
Author(s):  
Simon Deakin ◽  
Gaofeng Meng

Abstract We consider the implications of the Covid-19 crisis for the theory and practice of governance. We define ‘governance’ as the process through which, in the case of a given entity or polity, resources are allocated, decisions made and policies implemented, with a view to ensuring the effectiveness of its operations in the face of risks in its environment. Core to this, we argue, is the organisation of knowledge through public institutions, including the legal system. Covid-19 poses a particular type of ‘Anthropogenic’ risk, which arises when organised human activity triggers feedback effects from the natural environment. As such it requires the concerted mobilisation of knowledge and a directed response from governments and international agencies. In this context, neoliberal theories and practices, which emphasise the self-adjusting properties of systems of governance in response to external shocks, are going to be put to the test. In states’ varied responses to Covid-19 to date, it is already possible to observe some trends. One of them is the widespread mischaracterisation of the measures taken to address the epidemic at the point of its emergence in the Chinese city of Wuhan in January and February 2020. Public health measures of this kind, rather than constituting a ‘state of exception’ in which legality is set aside, are informed by practices which originated in the welfare or social states of industrialised countries, and which were successful in achieving a ‘mortality revolution’ in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Relearning this history would seem to be essential for the future control of pandemics and other Anthropogenic risks.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Hannes Peltonen ◽  
Knut Traisbach

Abstract This foreword frames the Symposium in two ways. It summarises the core themes running through the nine ‘meditations’ in The Status of Law in World Society. Moreover, it places these themes in the wider context of Kratochwil's critical engagement with how we pursue knowledge of and in the social world and translate this knowledge into action. Ultimately, also his pragmatic approach cannot escape the tensions between theory and practice. Instead, we are in the midst of both.


Ecclesiology ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-43
Author(s):  
Graham Buxton

AbstractThe author critiques inductive approaches to pastoral theology that rely on the empirical methodology of the social and human sciences, and presents an alternative Christocentric praxis model of pastoral ministry. The result is an attempt to integrate pastoral theory and practice that shifts the perspective away from functionally-determined theologies of ministry to a relationally oriented and hermeneutically coherent model of orthopraxis in which theory and practice interact in a way that is intended to both deepen faith and transform lives. Some of the key themes that inform the discussion are the importance of theological method, the role of the community as the context for care, the relationship between practical ministry and systematic theology, and the notion of praxis in articulating the nature and scope of practical theology today.


Author(s):  
Qi D. Van Eikema Hommes

As the content and variety of technology increases in automobiles, the complexity of the system increases as well. Decomposing systems into modules is one of the ways to manage and reduce system complexity. This paper surveys and compares a number of state-of-art components modularity metrics, using 8 sample test systems. The metrics include Whitney Index (WI), Change Cost (CC), Singular value Modularity Index (SMI), Visibility-Dependency (VD) plot, and social network centrality measures (degree, distance, bridging). The investigation reveals that WI and CC form a good pair of metrics that can be used to assess component modularity of a system. The social network centrality metrics are useful in identifying areas of architecture improvements for a system. These metrics were further applied to two actual vehicle embedded software systems. The first system is going through an architecture transformation. The metrics from the old system revealed the need for the improvements. The second system was recently architected, and the metrics values showed the quality of the architecture as well as areas for further improvements.


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