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Re:U.S. tells Google computers can qualify as drivers by maratd on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @09:59AM (#11073140)
Corporations aren't persons, they're legal constructs. And no, a person is not a legal construct.
Re:U.S. tells Google computers can qualify as drivers by nxzero on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @10:07AM (#11073186)
Within the USA, legally speaking, corporations are treated as people:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

Re:U.S. tells Google computers can qualify as drivers by pmontra on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @11:05AM (#11073589)
With some limits, I bet. Can you jail a corporation? In many cases law enforcement is based on the ability of the state to limit personal freedom, through the use of force if needed. I wonder who'll be responsible if a self driven car kills somebody. Obviously not the passenger, especially if Google gets this "no controls" policy passed. But Google and the other car makers won't sell any of those cars if some of their people has to spend jail time for any major accident that sooner or later will inevitably happen. A possibility is that it will be legislated to be similar to what happens when a bridge collapses and kills somebody. An investigation and the engineers will go on trial. But that's strikingly different from what happens to human drivers.

(BTW, who's going to pay speed fines? They shouldn't happen but I'm sure they will)

Re:U.S. tells Google computers can qualify as drivers by dragonwriter on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @10:21AM (#11073289)
The whole point of corporations is juridical personhood -- that's not a US quirk.
Re:U.S. tells Google computers can qualify as drivers by pluma on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @11:11AM (#11073643)
Sure, but the US is especially bonkers with regard to the rights that person has.

Apparently corporations can have religious beliefs in the US.

Re:U.S. tells Google computers can qualify as drivers by dllthomas on Wednesday February 10, 2016 @11:36AM (#11073880)
My understanding has it that this is a disingenuous misconstrual of what happened in the Hobby Lobby case. It's not that the corporation has religious beliefs. It's that the owners do - where that set of owners is sufficiently small and sufficiently homogeneous that that's reasonably well defined. And that those beliefs don't lose protection just because they are acting through their corporation instead of acting as an individual.

I have, at least, misgivings about the ultimate decision - and certainly disagree with the religious beliefs claimed by the owners of Hobby Lobby - but I think we should deal with the actual arguments.