Panel 1: Robotic Speech and the First Amendment

Silverman: We kick off today’s symposium with a panel on Robotic Speech and the First Amendment. The focus of this first panel is the soonto-be-published book by Professors Skover and Collins. Professor David Skover is the Fredric C. Tausend Professor of Law here at Seattle University, and he will represent the authors on this morning’s panel. The book is Robotica.1 The first half of the book lays out an argument extending First Amendment protection to robotic speech. The second half of the book has five commentators who give their reactions to the first half, followed by the response of Professors Skover and Collins to the commentators. Our format this morning is going to mirror the structure of the book. I will begin by offering my own summary of the argument set out by Professors Skover and Collins. That will be followed by two of the five commentators here today, Attorney Johnson and Professor Norton. And then Professor Skover will offer his response to the two commentators. Attorney Bruce Johnson is one of the nation’s leading First Amendment litigators. He is a partner at Davis Wright Tremaine here in Seattle. Professor Helen Norton holds the Ira C. Rothgerber, Jr. Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Among her many works she has recently written an article entitled, Siri-ously? Free Speech Rights and Artificial Intelligence.2 The central insight and premise from which Professors Skover and Collins begin is that any new and effective technology of communication transforms society and the law by changing the calculus of its values and