I'm not pitching it per se, I'm just claiming that's what I think the endgame for AI is. Corporations (especially in the medical, pharmaceutical and insurance fields) are already masters at avoiding legal liability. What are you [royal] going to do, bleed to death in the streets? Not get your insulin or heart medication? What decisions are you going to make when every company does the same thing? Get your chemo from a shaman? People already put up with massive cruelty and corruption from the medical industry, they would roll over for this as well.

I can even see it being sold as part of healthcare reform. After all, we don't trust doctors anymore, we don't trust science, surely AI would be more fair, more rational and ethical. AI can't be paid off by big pharma to push pills you don't need. AI doesn't care what race or gender you are. AI doesn't get exhausted after a 24 hour rotation. Costs would go down, quality would go up. That would be the pitch anyway. The rest would be in the fine print, not a sign in front of the hospital.

I don't want to live in that world, but I can see a path to it from where we are now. I think some kind of legal personhood for AI as a pretense to apply legal liability to AI is inevitable.