Delaware is home to more corporations than people. Human people, that is, as under longstanding state law and the US Supreme Courtās infamous 2010 ruling, corporations are people, too.
A judge in Delawareāa state with more registered business entities than peopleāruled Monday in favor of a small town that allows corporations to vote in local elections.
Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz ruled that the town of Fenwick Island, population 400, did not violate the state Constitution by permitting business entitiesāwhich make up 12% of the townās āpopulationāāto vote in municipal elections, as case plaintiff the ACLU of Delaware had claimed.
āWhat is a āperson?ā When one cuts to the heart of this case, that is the question,ā Karsnitz wrote to open his 20-page ruling.
Yeah, itās definitely putting the cart before the horse.
The law defines who can initiate and be subject to legal proceedings, and somewhere in there thereās gotta be the assumption that you must be a person to do so.
So now theyāre saying that anyone who can do those things must be a person. Itās circular reasoning.
If we make a law that says cats can now be subject to or initiate legal proceedings, does that make them a person? Or do we need a law that grants them personhood status in order to be subject to or initiate legal proceedings?
Also, this is kind of silly: āa person is anyone or anything thatā¦ā (emphasis added).
Theyāre literally saying right there that a THING can be a personā¦
If my computer can initiate legal proceedings, does that make it a person?
How can you bar AI agents from initiating legal proceedings on the grounds that itās not a person, if the deciding factor that determines whether itās a person is whether itās capable of initiating legal proceedings?
This is going to open up so many cans of wormsā¦
Good point. Also an interesting example with the AI.
I wouldnāt be surprised if AI will son be used to initiate legal proceedings, or directly start lawsuits, maybe even see them through.
By that logic an AI should also be able to vote, and so would any computer that can run an AI.
So many cans of worms.
They shouldāve regulated it in 2021 but nooo āitāll hamper innovationā they saidā¦