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I agree with you, the article is pretty absurd, but to play devils advocate: I think most people would feel that tricking children into doing something harmful

I agree with you, the article is pretty absurd, but to play devils advocate: I think most people would feel that tricking children into doing something harmful is worse than tricking an adult because they don't know any better. They don't have the reasoning to be able to decide and give consent. If an adult gets tricked, that's "on them", but it's different for children. Despite the author saying how smart baluga whales are, even the smartest animals can barely reason as well as a human child, so isn't tricking them even worse?

ordu 8y ago
Yes, tricking children is worse, because they are humans. But beluga or dog is not a children, they are not humans. To be humanistic is to be concerned about humans. It somehow leads to be concerned about other animals too, but humans first, animals later. As for me it is a matter of prioritizing things. Appealing to the animal cuteness is no more than appealing to an emotions. If you are choosing between human and animal for a mortally dangerous mission, what will be your choice? I see an ethical issue though. There are a lot of discissions about AI killing people. What about animals trained to kill people? If we lay aside the cuteness of animals, is it somehow different from AI?