279th Council Bill P.L. 116658A also known as Zimmermans Bill|Zimmerman's Bill
In the 279th Federation Council session, Bill P.L. 116658 was submitted for consideration by Freshman Councilman Zimmerman. Through months of debate, and evidence brought forth on both sides, the Bill P.L. 116658 was passed with a majority by the end of the Council session and end of the year.
The bill, while florid and abundantly clear in its wording can be summed up in a simple expression. Life as we know it, is not an adequate determination of life. The definition requires a retooling to include life as we do not yet understand. As such, the bill proposed to define sentient life by a determination of self awareness and sufficient sentience no matter its form or origin.
It was determined through the evidence this last century that holographic creations and more defined simulations of personalities as they had been written to simulate life, have, with the power of the modern computing, had the potential to break through the threshold to true intelligence and thus be defined as individually sentient life, changes to the regulations on the production of such software had to address and all existing matrices analyzed. Those passing the Turing test and the Maddox test would be offered the choice of self determination. Due to the complexity of the issue, all public holo-simulation use was restricted for nearly four years with a temporary complete ban on new creations.
Artificial life forms, Self-Aware Computer Matrices, Non-Corporeal Entities, even Decentralized Intelligent Networks fall within the new definitions of sentient life. New commissions such as the Starfleet Sentience Project were formed to perform the evaluations with many thousands if not millions of new individuals claiming their rights as sentient beings. The processing alone to enter the entities into records required millions of labor-hours of work.
After the pause of public holo-simulation use, ethical restrictions in holo-simulator was set into place to allow for entertainment, simulation and communication to resume but with restriction algorithms in place avoid accidental creation of sentient life going forward. Few individuals claim to notice the difference with less lifelike characters and interactions.
In all, the self aware computer matrices most of which were created with UFP computer systems, posed the largest quandary. The others life forms could be granted recognition of rights and freedoms without posing imposition on other citizens. As programs were either tools or property previously and required assets and power in order to exist. Major efforts were initiated in order to provide the equivalent of equal housing and basic needs provided as they are available to all UFP citizens. Each member world would be tasked with providing adequate resources for their own 'Photonic Population'. On Earth a Photonic city named Atlantis was built as a data center the equivalent of ten state of the art computers with room to expand memory to sustain a city of several million Holo-Matrices and a permanent interactive environment. Atlantis was brought online at the stroke of midnight to celebrate the new year of 2445, but drones were still adding capacity for five years so that it was not actually completed until 2450, Star Date 126603.77. Projects similar to the Atlantis project were begun on more than 75 member worlds since 2445.
Many safeguards were put into place to ensure the safety and security of the new Photonic Citizens. One was a protection against alterations of their programming without granted permissions. Codes were put into place that only the citizen or an order from the Federation council could bypass, forbidding changes to the individual personality or capabilities. The Photonic Citizen can learn, and grow in much the same way organic life forms may, but as a condition of Citizenship, code restrictions were put in place. One of the restrictions is against copying of the individual. This protection also granted the Photonic Citizen assurance that they will remain unique in their existence, the same as any organic individual, providing parity and understanding between the different citizens. Each Photonic Citizen must have embedded in their code an override to allow full unrestricted use of public holographic facilities, where non-sentient programs have inhibitors from ever forming the pathways for sentience.