Legal Rights and Accountability of Cyberpresence: A Void in Space Law/Astrolaw Jurisprudence

Abstract

Technology is advancing faster than our jurisprudence and legal regimes can respond to and accommodate in a reasonable and timely fashion. In anticipation of new social values that are sensitive and responsive to those advances, disciplined speculation must be undertaken regarding the directions these rapid technological advancements are taking us, both individually and collectively. In this context, it is necessary to start exploring and formulating yet-to-be-discovered societal values and legal infrastructures to accommodate biotechnological and socio-cultural changes wrought by these constantly advancing technologies. It is reasonable, if not imperative, to prepare as fully as possible for the social and jurisprudential consequences of the scientific and engineering disciplines that may well alter our traditional legal definitions of what we have heretofore understood to be “human.” Extant definitions represent centuries of accumulated wisdom and agreement concerning the essence of the human being and, consequently, the inherent or “natural” rights of those beings. Indeed, social phenomena closely linked with the integration of biology and technology, phenomena like biologically integrated artificial intelligence, integrated in turn with robotics, telepresence, virtual presence, and avatar cyborgs, contribute to new conceptual frameworks closely aligned with the idea of “embodiment.” Expanding technological innovation has led to and enabled the “population” of “cyberspace.” Such technological innovation quietly yet persistently expands our requirements for understanding the essence of the human being beyond traditional definitions and challenges conventional wisdom with the need to consider the nature and essence of what could be conceived of as human kind. Grounded upon the concept of embodiment, novel conceptual frameworks unfold that embrace an understanding that gives rise to the presence of a kind of entity that can be the subject of, or accountable to, laws and their subtending societal values. Such embodiment demands disciplined speculation about whether and how independent accountability arises and/or is extended under specific regimes of law to such entities, both existing and yet to be formulated. Such disciplined and creative speculation may well lead to the formulation of new principles of “Natural Law.” We begin this speculation, as we should, with the potentially applicable social values and legal structures with which our sentient species is familiar, that is, with those laws and juridical regimes with which we are already familiar. These laws can help transition us and our human kind creations into yet-to-be-conceived legal regimes and jurisprudence to establish and to nurture sensitive and responsive interactions between and among humans and human kind. The authors have elected to explore this avenue of inquiry in the context of human and human kind activity in space.