Stuff like that. Inflicting slow and painful death for amusement.

Frankly, I didn't completely follow derefr's post .. Did he really suggest that there could be a need for laws to govern what happens to simulated minds?

Read the book Altered Carbon. People can switch bodies and their minds can be run in simulation and there are laws about running someone's mind in simulation just for the puroses of torture.

That's all very interesting, but the "fiction" part of "science fiction" is there for a reason.

And by the way, if you're somehow successful in removing my mind from my body and torturing it in a computer, current laws would apply just fine.

Unlike fantasy, the fictional aspect of SF is not permanent. Yesterday's personal communicator is today's smartphone.

Artificial intelligences with distinct personalities are not here yet, but I see no fundamental bounds to their creation and am pretty optimistic about the timeframe. The question of whether such intelligences qualify as people will become a pressing one at that time, even if it seems abstract to you now.

Maybe not. The literal meaning of "Habeas Corpus" is "You have the body." Right now, there is no separation of mind and body in most legal systems.