If courts are going to treat corporations like humans, they should do the same for robots

With that in mind, we should extend the following freedoms and obligations to robots.

The right to enter and perform contracts. As I just noted, many of our interactions with robots will be economic. They will deliver our Amazon orders and arrange our groceries order. When the drone drops off our kids’ Curious George Blu-ray collection and when the grocery store software creates and buys our weekly shopping list, we will engage in small, contractual transactions. All the parties in that transaction need to be able to rely on those contracts. If, instead of Curious George, the Amazon drone delivers a very disturbing DVD about cosmetic testing on monkeys, the family that has signed for the package must be able to rely on that delivery contract with the drone when it complains to Amazon. Similarly, the person using supermarket software to plan and buy grocery lists cannot later refuse to pay, claiming that the software was legally incapable of making a contract. By giving robots the right to enter and perform contracts, we ensure that they will provide useful services in the economy while minimizing questions about their legal ability to do so.

The obligation to carry insurance. Some states have already moved in this direction as they have passed legislation governing autonomous cars. Legislation that treats each individual autonomous car as an insurable entity protects the car owner if liability is held entirely by the car. In other words, if legislation requires a self-driving car to have its own insurance and prevents plaintiffs from suing the owner, that would incentivize real people to buy autonomous cars because they will not be personally liable for the car’s self-driving accidents. The car becomes a separate insurable being that potentially provides a faster insurance payout to victims while protecting the owners from frivolous lawsuits.