Robot Slaves

But organic humans are no different from robots other than all that hydrogen and carbon.

If it's something you're not comfortable saying about organic beings, you shouldn't be comfortable saying it about mechanical beings.

edited 13th Feb '11 7:01:00 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

I don't really care about humans when mechanical machines are the topic of discussion. So my opinion of whether or not them being nothing but meaty slaves is moot. Besides, most humans can't have rocket launchers built into them. >:3

The thing is, people tend to get kind of hypocritical about things like this, wherein they're willing to apply different standards to robots than to humans for no particularly good reason.

And it's inhumane!

Let's just assume that I AM GOD INCARNATE and can snap my fingers to create human beings with personalities predetermined by me.

Good for you for having god-power, I guess? Still though, just because you made them doesn't mean its ethical for you to own them the same way you own a mug. I'm also not convinced that just because they're tailor made humans means they wouldn't care about things, if only for the fact that I'm pretty sure that they would functionally have to be vegetables to not care, and would therefore not have a personality to tailor. Its ether that, or altering their biology so much that can't genetically be human, which makes the point a bit moot for me.

Now that I think about it, there's also a distinction between having rights and having human rights, which makes this even more complicated. People are completely capable of owning animals, even though many are considered sapient. I'm not sure how to think about that aspect yet.

So, what, a robot made the same way would have to be functionally a vegetable? I guess the equivalent would be "a calculator."

No, they'd just have to be that way to fit into my "not caring about their fate" definition of sapience. Which means that I wouldn't care about it as a person.

Also, unlike human vegetables, just because a computer is unsapient doesn't mean they're just a calculator. Hell, human vegetables could be really useful already, if anyone knew how to use them — they do still have moderately functioning bodies more complex than a lot of computers. Its just really unethical, because most vegetables used to be people, or at least had the capability of being a person. Until we get something like that from a computer, I'm not seeing anything unethical with using them.

Slaves aren't owned like mugs. There are laws, rules and regulations. You have to BRIBE people if you're being too hard on your slaves.

Damn I love that game.

Its just really unethical, because most vegetables used to be people, or at least had the capability of being a person.

And that's why vegans exist. **is shot**

No. Vegans exist because being vegan gets you PSYCHIC POWERS.

Look, my point is that whether it's a bunch of hydrocarbons or carbon-steel fibers makes no difference; an entity that is sapient or sentient should have rights based on how sapient or sentient it is, not based on whether it's formed from a bunch of cells or just a bunch of bits of metal.

So, should the law threaten the robots with slavery and deathreassignation?

slaves aren't owned like mugs.

Robots slaves would be, unless we assume they already have rights similar to animals as pets or something.

Look, my point is that whether it's a bunch of hydrocarbons or carbon-steel fibers makes no difference; an entity that is sapient or sentient should have rights based on how sapient or sentient it is, not based on whether it's formed from a bunch of cells or just a bunch of bits of metal.

And I'm not exactly disagreeing with you — I don't really care if the computer is made of cells with DNA or microchips with ones and zeros, there's got to be more to it than that for me to care about its rights as a living creature. At the very least it has to have been capable of sapience at one point.

I see nothing to suggest that machines are in any way capable of sentience. It's science fiction. Until we discover something to suggest otherwise, that's what it will remain.

I see nothing to suggest that meat is capable of sentience. That's just fantasy.

We already did. Sentience is calculable. (Obviously, since your brain can compute it.) Unless something really weird is going on, that means a bog-standard computer can calculate it as well.

A.) If there is such a thing as the soul, then it is a part of the human consciousness. a1.) If there is such a thing, there is no inherit reason why it would only be possessed by human beings other than doctrine that suggests otherwise. ergo: If there is a sufficiently advanced AI (the circumstances that the topic is positing) there is no reason to posit that it does not have a soul.

B.) If there is no such thing as a soul, then thought processes are fully the result of electro-chemical interactions. b1.) Therefore, any thought process brought about by electro-magnetic functions is no less relevant than thought processes brought about by organic functions-further, though it may be beyond current technological limits, there is no reason to assume that such a process is impossible to duplicate, given unlimited time and material resources. b2.) In the event of the construction of such an AI, its intelligence is no less relevant than the intelligence of a human being.

ERGO: You can argue that Robot Slaves won't ever exist, but that's not the circumstances of the topic. The topic is about sapient robots. Talking about non-sapient robots is essentially Ignoratio Elenchi!

Natum Engel?

I think the main difference that I can see is that humans are considered a special case. It doesn't matter for some people if we managed to get robots that were intelligent/fast enough so that their processes were indistinguishable from human thought (so in effect, they could be P-Zombies). It's just the fact that robots aren't humans and therefore are fair game.

Not that I agree with that viewpoint, exactly. Just that it seems that way.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

The brain, unpredictable?

The Brain? Unpredictable? Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering??

Er. I didn't exactly say I was condoning that attitude. Perhaps I didn't make that clear enough. It's just a theory of mine which explains certain attitudes.

I mean, if we do dismiss the idea of a 'soul' as a piece of gumpf (okay there are debates but as far as we can tell, physically, there doesn't seem to be evidence for one), then if we do hypothetically manage to create an artificial intelligence that gains sapience/sentience (or something that is as close as to be indistinguishable), then why not grant it the same rights as a human being? Other than the idea that "It's just different, alright?".

EDIT: Okay basically I'm repeating what Tomu said. So: What Tomu Said. -_-

edited 14th Feb '11 11:09:16 AM by EthZee

It's okay; parroting what I'm saying and have said is a pretty surefire way of being right <3

Humans do have a physical soul. It's called the Brain. It's just that it's not immortal, and if there's an extradimensional record of it, there is no evidence to provit nor way to access it. Also dogs don exits.