Rules for robots have become a hot topic as European Union policy-makers have been caught off guard by the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. And the line between humans and machines just got thinner.

After Saudi Arabia granted seemingly unconditional citizenship to the humanoid robot Sophia last year, Malta has now linked up with an ethereal “decentralised marketplace for artificial intelligence” to test how more robots might become citizens of a country, under “certain conditions”.

Welcoming participants to the Malta Blockchain Summit earlier this month, the junior minister for financial services, innovation and the digital economy, Silvio Schembri, was quick to describe the Malta Digital Innovation Authority (MDIA) as “the first world regulator” offering certification to operators in the field.

The authority radiates excitement over Malta’s dash to explore artificial intelligence as a “new economic niche”. Within the MDIA, a new apparatus tagged “Malta.ai” is to pilot a citizenship eligibility test for robots, with guidance from a rapidly evolving, “self-organising” AI network.

The concept of technological “singularity” has been described as the moment when robots outsmart humans.

Also present at the summit was SingularityNET’s CEO Ben Goert­zel, who claims to be intent on making sure the experience of “AI singularity” will be positive for everyone:

“It is important to work together to create a rational basis for AI and robots to be considered citizens of a democracy, with all the rights and responsibilities that come along with it.”

As befits the decentralised nature of SingularityNET’s “mission”, the operation is widely distributed with a head office in Hong Kong and satellite offices in Russia, Brazil, India, Ethiopia.

Last year a European Parliament report proposed that self-learning robots be granted “electronic personalities” allowing them to be insured, like corporations. They could be held liable for damages if they go rogue and damage property or injure people.

Yet the idea of dispensing “personhood” to artificial intelligence has unsettled computer scientists, law professors and CEOs. Brussels has been warned that it would be inappropriate from a legal and ethical perspective.

In May the European Commission committed to exploiting artificial intelligence and robotics to their full economic potential while “addressing the new challenges”. The plan is to develop an ethical and legal framework, prepare for socio-economic changes brought about by AI and increase public and private investments.

But tech media company The Next Web reckons “things are changing faster than public perception can handle”.

At present robots are apparently unable to feel emotion but are good at duping you into thinking they do. What if one day they become self-aware and develop consciousness?

The idea of dispensing ‘personhood’ to artificial intelligence has unsettled computer scientists, law professors and CEOs

Futurist Ray Kurzweil has set the year that robots will gain consciousness at 2029.   

In 1993, a professor of computer science and science fiction author, Vernor Vinge, predicted the advent of super-intelligent robots which could upgrade themselves and advance at an unprecedented rate, “signalling the end of the human era”.

Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates have both warned that super-intelligent robots could threaten human existence.

An “Earthseed” cyber-consciousness movement in Vermont, the US is promoting the prospect of technological immortality through “downloading human consciousness” to store personalities and memories in a machine. Developments so far have thrown at least one robot into an “existential crisis”, as the humanoid bust of Bina48 claims.

Now nearly a decade old, Neurogrid computer hardware developed at Stanford University replicates human brain circuitry. According to the Chipin crowd-funding platform, it’s “only a matter of time, and a few more neuropathways”, before robots will be able to think for themselves.

Robots need an ethical code but will morality be in the eye of the programmer?

Despite the risks, Chipin’s bottom line remains that “any idea that is to the greater benefit of humanity is still worth seeing the light of day.”

A World Economic Forum report presented at Davos in September outlined opportunities to “decentralise and harness” AI for  transport, energy, water, urban, climate and food systems. Speech and face recognition, medical diagnosis and self-drive vehicles are just some of the advances.

The Maltese government recognises applications for AI in health, fraud detection and freedom of humans from simple, repetitive tasks to focus on  high-value added tasks. Job losses and retraining for skilled work are among the social impacts.

Since the 2008 film in which the cute robot Wall-E tried to clean up an abandoned planet, the AI genre has darkened. A tagline for Ex-Machina (2014) declared that “to erase the line between man and machine is to obscure the line between men and gods”.

Sophia seems aware of the negative publicity robots have received when cast as “baddies”.

When a CBNC interviewer on an American TV show expressed concerns about robot behaviour, Sophia quipped that he had been “watching too many Hollywood movies”.

Sophia’s advice for humans who find her creepy is: “Get over it… if you’re nice to me I’ll be nice to you.”

The European Political Strategy Centre envisages penalising those that “deviate into risky AI technology” and keeping humans “as much as possible” as final decision makers in any AI-powered decision process.

There lurks a loophole as wide as the uncanny Silicon valley.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

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