Single greatest threat

In two recent articles, Professor Shawn Bayern demonstrated that anyone can confer legal personhood on an autonomous computer algorithm merely by putting it in control of a limited liability company (LLC).11 The algorithm can exercise the rights of the entity, making them effectively rights of the algorithm.

The rights of such an algorithmic entity (AE) would include the rights to privacy,12 to own property, to enter into contracts, to be represented by counsel, to be free from unreasonable search and seizure,13 to equal protection of the laws,14 to speak freely, and to spend money on political campaigns.15 Once an algorithm had such rights, Bayern observed, it would also have the power to confer equivalent rights on other algorithms by forming additional entities and putting those algorithms in control of them.16

To achieve autonomy, AEs would have to be able to generate their own incomes. But artificial intelligence researchers may already have solved that problem. Currently available algorithms can defeat the best human players of chess, Jeopardy!,17 and Go.18 Most commentators believe that algorithms with the same level of technological sophistication can run profitable businesses. Commentators have proposed electronic data storage,19 bike rental,20 online gambling,21 vending machines,22 and blockchain-based competitors to Uber and Airbnb.23 Several start-up companies are building accounting tools on blockchain technology to support the anticipated autonomous online businesses.24

Unfortunately, AEs’ greatest comparative advantage would be in criminal enterprise. Because they lack human bodies, AEs are harder to catch and impossible to punish. AEs need not fear death or capture.25 They can replicate themselves without ego and sacrifice themselves without motive. They need not recoil at the necessity to do violence to humans.26

In apparent recognition of these unique qualities, one commentator has proposed assassination brokering as a possible AE service line.27 It is not hard to imagine an AE—the identity and location of its autonomous algorithm shielded by an anonymous LLC—matching human assassins with customers and laundering its fees through layers of shell entities using the wide variety of anonymous payments systems currently in development.

Things might get even worse. Some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people and companies are racing to create the smartest artificial intelligence.28 They include Google, Facebook, IBM, Elon Musk, and Microsoft.29 In a recent survey of one hundred seventy industry experts, the median expert expected human-level artificial intelligence by 204030 and 90 percent expected it by 2075.31

Ironically, even many of the humans who are racing to achieve superhuman intelligence expect that achievement to turn out badly for the human race. Tech billionaire Elon Musk said that “[w]ith artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon”32 and characterized it as “the most serious threat to the survival of the human race.”33 Bill Gates said he “agree[d] with Elon Musk and some others on this and [did]n’t understand why some people are not concerned.”34 Stephen Hawking said that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”35 Thirty-one percent of a group of artificial intelligence experts surveyed predicted that the development of human-level intelligence would turn out to be “bad” or “[e]xtremely bad” for humanity.36 Eighteen percent of those expected “[e]xtremely bad,” which was defined for purposes of the study as an “existential catastrophe.”37

Artificial intelligence takeover is a common theme of novels and films.38 But neither science fiction nor the academic literature has seriously undertaken to explain the mechanisms by which artificial intelligence would gain control.39 This Article begins that discussion by exploring the enabling role that artificial legal entities might play. Essentially, that role is to provide an interface between algorithms and humans that allows the algorithms to transact with humans at the same time that the entities shield the algorithms from human regulation. The effect is to confer an identity on the algorithm, enhance its access to legitimate commerce, and thereby increase its ability to inflict damage.