Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Unexpected things that are people

bengoldhaber.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 312 posts

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#211

Post by nzeid »

ZitchDog wrote: post #208
nzeid wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I think the boring answer here is that we sometimes need legal abstractions. Absolutely - the legal abstraction is that corporations are corporations, not people. The article went with a lighter hearted quip but here's my own tired old one: If corporations are people, then owning shares is unconstitutional as that would be a form of slavery.

Not correct: A share is a contract issued by the corporation entitling its owner to a share of future profits. So you're not buying a corporation, just engaging in a contract with it. I hate Citizens United as much as the next guy, but this isn't a good argument against it.

No, the established language is very precise and you can run this by any source. Shareholders collectively own corporations by way of equity.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#212

Post by dragonwriter »

justatdotin wrote: post #209
tyre wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. Why do you think this would be the case? I agree with the former but not the latter.

I want personhood for rivers because the rivers near me are being irreparably abused, and anything that can give them greater legal protection is welcome,

Juridical personhood doesn't benefit the entity to whom it is ascribed (directly, at least, and it may not even be a coherent concept for the kinds of things given juridical personhood), it most directly benefits the natural persons given the power to exercise the rights of personhood on its behalf, and sometimes benefits (by means of simplifying their task) the people seeking to use legal process against it.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#213

Post by TexanFeller »

chemotaxis wrote: post #5

Wouldn't personal property in the US fall under the same criteria, in the sense that the government can sue the property itself (civil forfeiture)? But I think the boring answer here is that we sometimes need legal abstractions. If they don't exist, Microsoft is no longer a distinct entity; it's 200,000 people who for some reason talk to each other, and you can't really audit their finances, punish them collectively,…

> or set any ground rules that apply specifically to their joint activities.

I suspect we can, and I know we should make corporations not have ALL of the same rights as a citizen. The first thing that comes to mind is barring them from political donations. It would also be great if their “free speech” didn’t extend to being able to censor legal content they don’t like or to payment and Internet infrastructure providers being able to cut off service to sites with legal content they don’t like(porn, certain politics, hateful content, etc.).

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#214

Post by protocolture »

jbs789 wrote: post #201

I enjoyed reading this. If we think about applicability to AI (as the footnote suggests was on the authors mind)… I found myself thinking about the motivations and incentives that existed at the time, to understand why. Ships - my read is that major naval powers essentially reduced the downside to owners of ships (making them responsible) while giving the owners salvage rights (“curing” the problem of a wreck which m…

I think AI personhood will come about via another path. That is the same as Animal rights.

We humans in general, suffer, when we perceive animals suffering. Its an entirely emotional response. Humans are developing emotional attachments to LLMs. It follows, to an extent, that people will try and shore up the rights of LLMs simply to assuage their emotions. It doesnt actually matter whether or not it can feel pain, but whether it can express pain in a way that causes a sympathetic emotion in a person.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#215

Post by tickerticker »

rootusrootus wrote: post #46
robot-wrangler wrote: post #7

Thought provoking. Most people who (quite reasonably) hate corporate personhood would probably have a knee-jerk reaction that personhood for a river can/should be normalized. The thing with temples stems ultimately from fairly practical matters if they hold such treasure, but it's a magnet for strife, and actually kind of surprising that in the case-study mentioned they resisted the opportunity to justify abuse of po…

I wouldn’t have so much problem with corporate personhood if we hadn’t decided money was speech. Plus, if corporations get to be people for all the good stuff, it should require taking the bad bits too. E.g. capital punishment should be on the table.

Arthur Anderson, The accounting firm, got the death penalty in the Enron debacle.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#216

Post by usrusr »

nzeid wrote: post #211
ZitchDog wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not correct: A share is a contract issued by the corporation entitling its owner to a share of future profits. So you're not buying a corporation, just engaging in a contract with it. I hate Citizens United as much as the next guy, but this isn't a good argument against it.

No, the established language is very precise and you can run this by any source. Shareholders collectively own corporations by way of equity.

What about non-voting shares? Can it be ownership if you are not included in decisions? I've never really thought about it, but now I believe that what GP was describing is exactly how those are made (or should be made). So at least not entirely wrong (no wait, they would also include a share of assets on dissolution, but that too can be done through a contract with the entity owned by regular shareholders)

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#217

Post by NegativeK »

otterdude wrote: post #179
wtetzner wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Person" in legalese means something specific. It's not the same as the dictionary definition.

I would like to see the law defining that!

The US Supreme Court decided in 1886 [1] that it's the 14th amendment.

The general article on Wikipedia [2] has more info about it, and discusses the fact that corporate personhood is an abstraction that represents the rights of the individuals owning or running the company. "Statutes violating their prohibitions in dealing with corporations must necessarily infringe upon the rights of natural persons" and modern cases. That article also discusses how, from the 1920s to the 80s, general corporate personhood wasn't as broad as it is today. It also mentions, at the top, historical instances of the idea.

But to your point, no corporation in the US has full, equal rights to a natural person. It's an abstraction that the legal system does not apply blindly. You could change the phrase "corporate person" to something like "corporate legal entity with a set of rights that overlaps with natural persons" or demand a different approach to the rights of a corporation, but I don't think "you're using that word wrong" will hold much weight with legal professionals.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern....

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#In_the_Un...

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#218

Post by drdeadringer »

In the novel The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell, after the Pope remarks that the aliens involved are "other children of God", I had the thought that perhaps when humans create AI robots, the Pope might consider these robots to be grandchildren of God.

I'm not trying to drag religion into this, despite my obviously doing so on the surface.

I am trying to see where certain flexibilities might be found, since there seems to be some flexibility on personhood in law.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#219

Post by usrusr »

arrosenberg wrote: post #70
chemotaxis wrote: post #5

Wouldn't personal property in the US fall under the same criteria, in the sense that the government can sue the property itself (civil forfeiture)? But I think the boring answer here is that we sometimes need legal abstractions. If they don't exist, Microsoft is no longer a distinct entity; it's 200,000 people who for some reason talk to each other, and you can't really audit their finances, punish them collectively,…

> This obviously has negative externalities, because while a corporation is easy to fine, it's hard to put in prison... but trying to approach it differently would be about as fun as modeling a CPU as a bunch of transistors. There's nothing stopping the legislature (other than their own self-interest) from passing a law that executives and board members are criminally liable for the malfeasance of their entity. We al…

And yet the owners for the benefit of whom those high ranking employees have committed their crimes run free, keeping the spoils. Not even "spoils except for some monetary punishment" is they sold at the right time. Imprisoning CEOs solves depressingly little.

Re: Unexpected things that are people

#220

Post by ashdksnndck »

jmye wrote: post #187
monocularvision wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if corporations aren’t people, then the New York Times has no right to the First Amendment.

I'm curious what you think "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of [...] the press" means, in this case. Did you just not know what the actual text is, or ... ?

The New York Times (the corporation, as a legal person) has the right to freedom of the press, not just individual humans who work there. This is good, because it means the entire institution is protected. Not only is the government forbidden from arresting the humans for operating the printing press, it’s also forbidden from sanctioning the corporation for hiring humans to operate the press. In other words, freedom of the press applies to corporations (eg. the Times) as well as human persons. I think you and the commenter you responded to both agree on the fundamental claim here, although you might disagree about the semantics of whether “corporate personhood” is a good way of describing this concept.
Post reply on HN