| That is really tough. I don't have an answer, but you might enjoy these loose thoughts. In the annals of technocracy, people can't stand politics anymore and so they send their toasters and refrigerators to do all that.
These appliances can not be bought and become capable politicians. Machines pay taxes and the hirachy of ownership, human owns machine, is still clear but the dominance hirachy becomes more and more unclear. Here the toaster can become the president, but he is still send away from his human who could be on the lower end of society. Of course every human is on welfare paid by the machines and everyone is happy in the technocratic society, until the human machine integration takes of and existenz becomes an inconceivable horror. So the owner of the machine has to be responsible of the machine or the technocracy goes rogue and enslaves humanity. Then owning or instructing the enslaver device can be made illegal. Even if your toaster decides to enslave humanity, you will have to answer for it, even if you don't care or never bothered with it. You willingly gave it your political powers and it operates in your absence on your behalf. Not even death can eliviate you from this responsibility and with machine integration death isn't even an option anymore. But we missed our chance of Technocracy and powered unhinged through all industrial revolutions.
Machines don't have to pay taxes for their labor, but they have become employers already.
We lost the ability to pin this on the owner. All liability is transfered to the user and nobody owns the company or the machine anymore. The user agrees to the conditions and takes over all liability. So by agreeing to use the enslaver you will enslave yourself. If this is forbidden by law, you are breaking that particular law. I don't see a way around it. |