This anthropomorphization happens all the time in the other direction: Software actors are seen reading license plates, wiretapping connections, checking speed

This anthropomorphization happens all the time in the other direction: Software actors are seen reading license plates, wiretapping connections, checking speed limits and red light compliance, monitoring uploads for copyright infringement, issuing takedowns, and otherwise acting as legal entities. Government actors are constantly allowed to do things because those rights would be afforded to an individual policeman or other human agent. I agree that this is a dangerous fallacy. Something that legislatures and culture have agreed is fine for a human to do - limited by human scaling, memory, and skill - may not be fine for a computer to do.