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Comment by cupofpython | Hacker News Reader

>Even if it made sense to give a deed to a tractor, no one would do it.

I mean... we both know people would if they could, right?

If a tractor approaches me with a QR code to a smart contract that will give me enormous money in exchange for my deed.. I'm going to do it

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Yea, in this analogy you already own the tractor, so you already own the tractor's money. I don't think I'm going on a limb by saying that isn't slavery. You already own the tractor and the money. There is no emancipation needed.

If somebody else's tractor approached you with a smart contract, the owner of that tractor would have a case that the smart contract was not entered into in good faith, since a tractor cannot enter a contract at all. Maybe you'd even get charged with theft.

> since a tractor cannot enter a contract at all.

this negates the "if we could" part of the hypothetical. I was assuming we live in a world with emancipated tractors capable of making deals (legally speaking), to emphasize that even though it is ridiculous it wouldnt stop people from doing it

Where did the tractor get the money?

I mean, people can probably give stuff to an "AI" the same way they leave stuff to their cats, but we are an absurdly long way off from developing an artificial intelligence with real agency. These are questions for science fiction authors, not actual legal scholars.

The legal and theoretical framework already exists somewhat for artificial entities in the form of corporate law and corporate personhood.

theoretically? it operates on smart contracts, so farmers pay it and it goes and does tractor things on their farm for them. It has no user access to its wallet, and the only way to regain human control of the tractor is with a factory reset which will lose all the wallet details. So the tractor is the only one with access to the money, and it accumulates enough to try to buy a deed for whatever algorithmic reasons

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