Objectives

The project aims to consider in more detail the interplay between consciousness, responsibility, and liability, and provide a basis for developing workable legal definitions of consciousness that can inform a regulatory and social policy response– which will be essential for assessing levels of accountability required by companies (as the developers), or the novel beings themselves and any ‘human’ rights that might be bestowed upon them. Morally significant questions are currently not answered by the law; for example, as the law stands the developers of these technologies are not required to consider whether these beings have a right to life, to liberty, or to self-ownership; nor to the impacts its existence and operations may have on society. It is the role of the humanities, particularly those that most influence societal perspectives, to help determine the correct course of action.

The ultimate academic goal of the work is to contribute to creation of a new intersectional field of research centred around the various societal, legal, and ethical impacts that new intelligent lifeforms, as well as other morally significant technologies, will have. The foundation of this field will be to bring together the life and computer sciences with the humanities in a new way which focuses on redefining, and providing a holistic alternative to, the piecemeal approach that is currently used in the regulation of emerging technologies. This new field will be highly interdisciplinary, centring around bioethics, human rights, and regulation, but involving significant elements of computer science and artificial intelligence studies, synthetic biology, genetics, neuroscience, sociology, consciousness studies, medical law, family law, international law, company law, and intellectual property law. The point of intersection that the issues raised by novel beings will occupy does not fall within the clear remit of any given discipline; and this work stands to shape the global research agenda in the area.