Massaro, Toni M.; Norton, Helen --- "Artificial intelligence and the First Amendment" [2018] ELECD 1414; in Barfield, Woodrow; Pagallo, Ugo (eds), "Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2018) 353

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence

Editor(s): Barfield, Woodrow; Pagallo, Ugo

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN: 9781786439048

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Artificial intelligence and the First Amendment

Author(s): Massaro, Toni M.; Norton, Helen

Number of pages: 22

Abstract/Description:

The First Amendment may protect free speech rights for strong Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this chapter, we bolster support for this surprising claim, address significant criticisms, and provide important limiting principles. Ours is not a claim about the state of technology, but an analysis of First Amendment law. We show how AI teaches us about current First Amendment doctrine, and the lack of humanness at its core. Yet thinking about AI free speech rights also points to the future of limits on First Amendment protections: determining what constitutes a non-speech harm, and the scope and limits of listener rights. Current positive and negative theories of the First Amendment may justify protecting AI speech insofar as they are largely unconcerned with human dignity, and wary of attempts to regulate more callous or disruptive speakers. We argue, however, that this does not mean free speech rights must extend to all AI; nor must all AI speech acts rise to the level of protectable expression. If AI speech protection is justified by listeners’ interests, then giving AI speech coverage need not --indeed should not -- obviate the human interests at the law’s core. We anticipate a future that includes greatly expanded AI speech and take this important first step of starting to think—Siri-ously—about the implications of AI for freedom of expression theory and doctrine.