An existing, ecologically-successful genus of collectively intelligent artificial creatures
It addresses the problem of societal governance for corporations as artificial entities, which is incremental as it builds on existing discussions about corporate ethics and AI risks.
The paper argues that corporations are already a form of artificial collective intelligence that co-exist with humans, and it calls for defining rights and responsibilities to ensure they behave responsibly in society.
People sometimes worry about the Singularity [Vinge, 1993; Kurzweil, 2005], or about the world being taken over by artificially intelligent robots. I believe the risks of these are very small. However, few people recognize that we already share our world with artificial creatures that participate as intelligent agents in our society: corporations. Our planet is inhabited by two distinct kinds of intelligent beings --- individual humans and corporate entities --- whose natures and interests are intimately linked. To co-exist well, we need to find ways to define the rights and responsibilities of both individual humans and corporate entities, and to find ways to ensure that corporate entities behave as responsible members of society.