Nov 5, 2005 - ImmInst Atlanta Life Extension Conf.
http://www.imminst.org/conference
Individual Speaker Abstract & Discussion Forum:
Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D, J.D., M.B.A
Responsible for launching several satellite communications companies including Sirius and WorldSpace. Founder and CEO of United Therapeutics. Lead the International Bar Association's project to develop a draft Human Genome Treaty for the United Nations. Founder of the Teresem Movement. Filed the first court motion on AI Legal Rights.
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Biocyberethics: should we stop a company from unplugging an intelligent computer?
by Martine Rothblatt
Attorney Dr. Martine Rothblatt filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent a corporation from disconnecting an intelligent computer in a mock trial at the International Bar Association conference in San Francisco, Sept. 16, 2003. The issue could arise in a real court within the next few decades, as computers achieve or exceed the information processing capability of the human mind and the boundary between human and machine becomes increasingly blurred.
Published on KurzweilAI.net Sept. 28, 2003.
Hearing: Dramatis personae
Judge: Joseph P. McMenamin, Attorney At Law, McGuideWoods
Plaintiff's Attorney: Dr. Martine A. Rothblatt, partner, Mahon, Patusk, Rothblatt & Fisher, Chartered
Defendant's Attorney: Marc N. Bernstein, founder and principal, The Bernstein Law Group and Technology and Law Commentator, ZDTV (now TechTV)
BINA48: Bina Aspen, Project Director, United Therapeutics Corp.
A webcast and transcript of the hearing are available.
More: http://www.kurzweila...es/art0594.html
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Man and the Machines
It's time to start thinking about how we might grant legal rights to computers.
By Benjamin Soskis
LAST YEAR, AT A MOCK TRIAL HELD DURING THE BIENNIAL CONVENTION of the International Bar Association in San Francisco, Martine Rothblatt argued an especially tough case. The difficulty for Rothblatt, an attorney-entrepreneur and pioneer in the satellite communications industry, was not that she represented an unsympathetic client. Far from it—the plaintiff's story of confronting corporate oppressors moved the large audience. The problem was that the plaintiff was a computer.
According to the trial scenario, a fictitious company created a powerful computer, BINA48, to serve as a stand-alone customer relations department, replacing scores of human 1-800 telephone operators. Equipped with the processing speed and the memory capacity of 1,000 brains, the computer was designed with the ability to think autonomously and with the emotional intelligence necessary to communicate and empathize with addled callers.
By scanning confidential memos, BINA48 learned that the company planned to shut it down and use its parts to build a new model. So it sent a plaintive e-mail to local lawyers, ending with the stirring plea, "Please agree to be my counsel and save my life. I love every day that I live. I enjoy wonderful sensations by traveling throughout the World Wide Web. I need your help!" The computer offered to pay them with money it had raised while moonlighting as an Internet researcher.
More: http://www.legalaffa...is_janfeb05.msp
