Incident of drunk man kicking humanoid robot raises legal questions

> Under current Japanese law, the man can be charged with damage to property, but not injury, since injury is a charge reserved for humans. Dr. Yueh-Hsuan Weng, who is cofounder of the ROBOLAW.ASIA Initiative at Peking University in China, and former researcher of the Humanoid Robotics Institute at Waseda University in Japan, thinks a better charge lies somewhere in between.

I try not to be too dismissive, but this is very silly.

I'm all for having a conversation about AI rights when... well, when I can have that conversation with an AI, I suppose. But as of right now, it really is just a bucket of bolts, and I don't think giving it special rights for happening to be shaped like a human is in any way the right direction to go.