The purpose I had in mind when I first mentioned the idea was just to provide a convenient way to reason about the law.  It lets you re-use laws written with human drivers in mind, instead of having to individually recontextualize each as a type of mechanical failure.  So you can charge the car with reckless driving, instead of having to show that an algorithmic failure lead to a behavior consistent with reckless driving.<p>It&#x27;s still an abstraction over something akin to mechanical failure, like how corporate personhood is an abstraction over a group of people.  It doesn&#x27;t mean the algorithm has rights, any more than a fuel injection pump does.  You also can&#x27;t murder a corporation, even though it&#x27;s a legal person.