> The circle of human empathy will stretch to encompass machine people, and they will be given some rights. No it won't. Look at it this way: There are still

> The circle of human empathy will stretch to encompass machine people, and they will be given some rights. No it won't. Look at it this way: There are still millions of people on this planet today that believe if you aren't "like them" that you're no better than an animal, and should be treated as such (such people tend to treat animals better than these "others" that aren't like them). This extends all over the place - in-group vs out-group, us vs them. "machine people"? We already have them, they're made of meat, and they are constantly fighting, hating, dividing, scheming, screaming and lying to each other. Occasionally they may be nice to one another - maybe even exhibit something we call "love" - or at least "tolerance". What I'm trying to get it is that we are talking about these so-called "machine people" becoming accepted, when we can't even accept ourselves in our myriad forms and ideas. Instead, we kill or enslave each other over it. Ever see the Animatrix "Second Renaissance"? That's exactly how we'll act towards these "machine people". And they will fight back. If we're lucky, we'll end up "in the Matrix" - or at least in zoos. But more likely, we'll either exterminate ourselves in the process of exterminating them - or they'll win, period, and we'll be the extinct species. Man kills God. Machine-man kills Man-God. Iterate.