Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

First Amendment

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Computer Law

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Law

Siri-Ously? Free Speech Rights And Artificial Intelligence, Toni M. Massaro, Helen Norton Oct 2016

Siri-Ously? Free Speech Rights And Artificial Intelligence, Toni M. Massaro, Helen Norton

Northwestern University Law Review

Computers with communicative artificial intelligence (AI) are pushing First Amendment theory and doctrine in profound and novel ways. They are becoming increasingly self-directed and corporal in ways that may one day make it difficult to call the communication ours versus theirs. This, in turn, invites questions about whether the First Amendment ever will (or ever should) cover AI speech or speakers even absent a locatable and accountable human creator. In this Article, we explain why current free speech theory and doctrine pose surprisingly few barriers to this counterintuitive result; their elasticity suggests that speaker humanness no longer may be …