Should robots be entitled to the same rights as humans?

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For instance if you programmed a robot to wail out loud when it got hit would you actually believe it is in pain? Of course not. Pain is part of what makes us human. Without it we would die. But of course a robot does not need to feel pain because it was never alive. And thus it can never risk death. Since only something alive needs pain to help it avoid it.
 
Having said all that I would not go so far as to say a robot doesn’t have any value or merit. It could have much value and deserve protection from abuse. For instance the Mona Lisa is just a thing. But it still holds great value to people. Or the Sistene chapel, St. Peter’s Bassilica, or the Eiffel tower. These all signify excellence in human achievement. They have a beauty quality to them. Similarly an advanced A.I robot would represent a beautiful human achievement. Thus, when I watch commander data on Star Trek on trial to see if he has any rights against being dismantled I am rooting for Data, because he is something special like the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa shouldn’t be dismantled to determine what is the chemical composition of the paint. And neither should the character Data.
 
mikekle said:
The question is, whether or not these robots will even care about being used or abused? I guess it depends on the level of AI they have. If they are bipedal and created to look humanoid, its certain some people will view them as people and demand rights for them, or at least not to mistreat them, but people ‘abuse’ technology today, cars, electronic devices, etc. and no one really considers it wrong, it might be costly , repairs and such if things are abused, but not really a moral issue, as cars, etc dont have feelings.

It will be interesting to see how the first type of AI responds to things like this, if they recognize they are just machines, it wont be a problem, but if they find out these things have ‘feelings’ or develop them…we are in for problems.
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The question might instead be whether they decide that we’re worth keeping around.

We wouldn’t be talking of programmed machines here, since the level of intelligence shown by, for instance, a dog is already far too complicated to be programmed. These robots would instead learn for themselves, and there are various known techniques already in use to enable that. Indeed, people such as Stephen Hawking are concerned that robots connected by wifi and the internet would instantly download each others learning, and rapidly outstrip us.

He may have a point, I don’t know. The speed and power of computers grows exponentially, there is more intelligence in today’s cheap cellphone than in a 1970s mainframe which occupied a large room, and the question might be whether we have enough imagination to see what we’re getting ourselves into. We’re the species which put a hole in the ozone lever and only just realized diesel is bad for our health, we don’t have a great track record when it comes to knowing what we’re getting ourselves into.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Because it was designed by a human being. Have awe for the person who designed it, not the machine. What - are you in awe of your car, your dishwasher, your washing machine, your computer? That is really nuts!!!
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You’re getting “respect” and “awe” mixed up.

I respect my dog - I look after him, feed him, play with him and generally care for him. But I’m not in awe of him.

Similarly for the backhoe we both mentioned earlier. I haven’t got one, and I’ve got no intention of getting one, but if I had one I’d respect it - I’d look after it, get it serviced when its due, know what it can and can’t do, and generally try to treat it the way it was designed to be treated. That’s “respect” - it’s not “awe”.

God expects us to “respect” His creation and creatures. I think He’s going to have few hard words to say to people who crowd chickens in tiny cages all their life, leaving lights on day and night, to get a few more eggs out of them. That’s just plain cruelty and total disrespect. It doesn’t mean He expects us to treat them with awe, but He does expect us to respect them.

Likewise our own creations - got a car? How do you treat it? With contempt? Leave it out in the weather night and day with the windows down? Never get it serviced? Pour sugar down the fuel inlet? I’ll bet you don’t, so you’re just as guilty of treating your car with “respect” (not “awe”) as I am.
 
Bob_Crowley said:
You’re getting “respect” and “awe” mixed up.

I respect my dog - I look after him, feed him, play with him and generally care for him. But I’m not in awe of him.

Similarly for the backhoe we both mentioned earlier. I haven’t got one, and I’ve got no intention of getting one, but if I had one I’d respect it - I’d look after it, get it serviced when its due, know what it can and can’t do, and generally try to treat it the way it was designed to be treated. That’s “respect” - it’s not “awe”.

God expects us to “respect” His creation and creatures. I think He’s going to have few hard words to say to people who crowd chickens in tiny cages all their life, leaving lights on day and night, to get a few more eggs out of them. That’s just plain cruelty and total disrespect. It doesn’t mean He expects us to treat them with awe, but He does expect us to respect them.

Likewise our own creations - got a car? How do you treat it? With contempt? Leave it out in the weather night and day with the windows down? Never get it serviced? Pour sugar down the fuel inlet? I’ll bet you don’t, so you’re just as guilty of treating your car with “respect” (not “awe”) as I am.
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I don’t have a car so I don’t have that issue. 😛 Likewise, I think you are equating respect with general maintenance. Of course I take care of my machines, but I don’t cry if they suddenly stop working. I get other ones, or fix the old ones. But when it’s time for them to go, I’m okay with getting rid of them and replacing them.

I am sure you feel the same about your car. I bet you won’t mourn over your car if you need to get a new one. That would be nuts. However, I bet you will mourn over your dog when it dies, because it is alive. Your car is not alive. Your dog is alive. Get it?
 
inocente said:
Rights are a social construct, conferred by society on its members. Several countries grant limited rights of personhood to the other hominids (gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans) in recognition of the qualities they share with us. This is mainly to prevent them being used in harmful experiments and in circuses. In a democratic society, I imagine most people would see speaking sentient robots as deserving at least those rights, since the only alternative would be to treat them as slaves or worse.

But also, and I can’t emphasize this enough, Star Trek is fiction, it didn’t really happen. 😃

Thanks, there’s a Penguin Modern Classics version for 14 euros, reckon I can afford that.
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Hominids? That’s irrational. Animals should be treated humanely by humans - that’s all. There is no comparison between a machine and an animal.

Machines do our bidding, and have no concept of slavery. That’s not logical. They don’t need food or water or shelter. They don’t tire, have goals or desires or anyone to care for. Devices have no desires.

Ed
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
I don’t have a car so I don’t have that issue. 😛 Likewise, I think you are equating respect with general maintenance. Of course I take care of my machines, but I don’t cry if they suddenly stop working. I get other ones, or fix the old ones. But when it’s time for them to go, I’m okay with getting rid of them and replacing them.

I am sure you feel the same about your car. I bet you won’t mourn over your car if you need to get a new one. That would be nuts. However, I bet you will mourn over your dog when it dies, because it is alive. Your car is not alive. Your dog is alive. Get it?
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Precisely, which is why I said it boils down to a matter of respect. Obviously we understand the term in a couple of different ways.

And yes, it does hurt when we have to put dogs down. I’ve put two down since we got married, both due to the complications of old age (in them, not me, although I’m working at it).
 
inocente said:
The question might instead be whether they decide that we’re worth keeping around.

We wouldn’t be talking of programmed machines here, since the level of intelligence shown by, for instance, a dog is already far too complicated to be programmed. These robots would instead learn for themselves, and there are various known techniques already in use to enable that. Indeed, people such as Stephen Hawking are concerned that robots connected by wifi and the internet would instantly download each others learning, and rapidly outstrip us.

He may have a point, I don’t know. The speed and power of computers grows exponentially, there is more intelligence in today’s cheap cellphone than in a 1970s mainframe which occupied a large room, and the question might be whether we have enough imagination to see what we’re getting ourselves into. We’re the species which put a hole in the ozone lever and only just realized diesel is bad for our health, we don’t have a great track record when it comes to knowing what we’re getting ourselves into.
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Yes, part of the problem in discussing this topic, is we can only speculate based on how todays computer technology is, Im not sure of the details, but Im betting in 100 years, the level of computer technology will make current times look like a dinosaur, no one can predict what the next big tech innovation or ‘jump’ will be, I think AI will be discovered by accident, they will be experimenting on something else and come to discover some type of artificial intelligence, or how to reach the ability to create AI, it will be NOTHING like our computers or software today though.

I still say AI will be some kind of merging between biology and computers, right now, we only have hardware and software, when this merger comes along, there will be a third category…bio-ware, or something like it. I think they will try to sort of mimic the human brain and install this into a robot of some kind and see what happens.

It could be great for mankind, or could be a disaster.
 
Bob_Crowley said:
Precisely, which is why I said it boils down to a matter of respect. Obviously we understand the term in a couple of different ways.

And yes, it does hurt when we have to put dogs down. I’ve put two down since we got married, both due to the complications of old age (in them, not me, although I’m working at it).
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Yes I understand that. And I can totally understand respecting your dogs. They are fine sweet creatures with a lot of feelings. Cars, however…
 
edwest2 said:
Hominids? That’s irrational. Animals should be treated humanely by humans - that’s all. There is no comparison between a machine and an animal.

Machines do our bidding, and have no concept of slavery. That’s not logical. They don’t need food or water or shelter. They don’t tire, have goals or desires or anyone to care for. Devices have no desires.
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Let’s look at the history of Western ethics in this area.

From the 15th to 19th century there were many who thought slaves had no soul. “Their minds were declared to be blank of any awareness of cruelty, slavery or subjugation”. - books.google.es/books?id=r_LaPYlmNEEC&lpg=PA2&pg=PR18#v=onepage&q&f=false

Another example: “In the 16th century, North America contained 25-30 million buffalo. Bison were hunted almost to extinction in the 19th century and were reduced to a few hundred by the mid-1880s”. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting#19th_century_bison_hunts_and_near_extinction

Another example: we are currently heading for the sixth great mass extinction event, caused by us. - advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253

Our track record at discerning what is irrational and what is logical, even for our own species, is abysmal. There are no indications we’ve got it right yet, we’re still fumbling along. In a hundred years’ time, people may be talking about silicon-based life forms rather than machines or devices.
 
YosefYosep said:
I am currently in an online argument. My opponent is arguing that if robots could reach an intelligence level, say, of C3PO from Star Wars, then they should be considered intelligent and rational beings endowed with the same rights as us. Any arguments I might want to consider in my rebuttal?
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Rebuttal: “Once you prove that it will ever be possible to have robots with functioning minds, then we can discuss what rights they ought to have. Till then, it’s all fiction.”
 
Reepicheep said:
Rebuttal: “Once you prove that it will ever be possible to have robots with functioning minds, then we can discuss what rights they ought to have. Till then, it’s all fiction.”
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🙂 18th century slave trader’s rebuttal to your rebuttal: “Once you prove that slaves have functioning minds, then we can discuss what rights they ought to have. Till then, it’s all fiction.”

Whereas we would say the opposite: “Until it is proved they don’t have functioning minds, they shall not be slaves”. (And even then we wouldn’t allow it.)

Times change.
 
YosefYosep said:
I am currently in an online argument. My opponent is arguing that if robots could reach an intelligence level, say, of C3PO from Star Wars, then they should be considered intelligent and rational beings endowed with the same rights as us. Any arguments I might want to consider in my rebuttal?
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It is just a machine that has been programmed with very smart software. If one can understand that, how could a machine have any rights, rights to what? And yet people can engage in this type of silly talk and yet won’t bat an eyelid when abortions are happening right in front of them. If a fetus has no right to live, should a machine be given more right than a fetus? Or has society devolved to such an extent that they no longer can tell human from machine?

If it is a matter of IQ, then a brain dead person would have no rights. The machine would triumph. And since there is a continum of various levels of IQ, those at the lower rungs probably shouldn’t have any rights by that reasoning. So those mentally impaired will have very little rights and those smarter ones could just terminate them at will for not being smart enough. See where this will lead to?
 
inocente said:
🙂 18th century slave trader’s rebuttal to your rebuttal: “Once you prove that slaves have functioning minds, then we can discuss what rights they ought to have. Till then, it’s all fiction.”

Whereas we would say the opposite: “Until it is proved they don’t have functioning minds, they shall not be slaves”. (And even then we wouldn’t allow it.)

Times change.
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And if people were enslaving robots that would be a valid point. But human slaves were real things. Robots aren’;t yet.
 
Reepicheep said:
And if people were enslaving robots that would be a valid point. But human slaves were real things. Robots aren’;t yet.
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Do they get paid for their labor? Following your logic, we have enslaved them already.

However, according to my logic, one can’t enslave robots. They aren’t living creatures.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
Do they get paid for their labor? Following your logic, we have enslaved them already.

However, according to my logic, one can’t enslave robots. They aren’t living creatures.
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Yep, I don’ t think they are entitled to holidays, sick leave and rest days either. That is why we invent them so that we can have those:D
 
fisherman_carl said:
For instance if you programmed a robot to wail out loud when it got hit would you actually believe it is in pain?
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This is a very interesting question.

Suppose that the robot is an android (a humanoid robot) which exhibits the “usual” signs of “pain”. When you cut it, it bleeds (artificial blood maybe, but you are not aware of it), when you beat it, it will leave a visible mark. And the process just gets refined… at which point would you accept that the “simulation” turned into “reality”?

By the same token if that assumed android is actually a very talented actor (unbeknownst to you), who “simulates” pain very convincingly… would you stop beating him and accept that he is actually in pain, and not just simulating it? (There are some humans who do NOT feel pain… a very dangerous attribute)

In other words: “what separates the emulation from the real McCoy”? Or putting it differently: “if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, tastes like a duck… on what grounds would you declare: this is not a real duck, just an emulation of a real duck”?
 
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