4 ms·

> From a different perspective, a human lacking in these things, at what point are they exempt from protection against enslavement? I appreciate this line of r

> From a different perspective, a human lacking in these things, at what point are they exempt from protection against enslavement? I appreciate this line of reasoning. It's not just a razor-sharp thought experiment, but it also has historical relevancy in that slavery was, at times, justified on the(erroneous) grounds that slaves also didn't possess the human faculties that free people did. It also shows that the definition of human/consciousness/sentience isn't grounded in an permanent set of unchanging attributes, but that both the groundings themselves vary in time a place, and the relation between them are subject to change as well. Economic relations, in the case of slavery, had a direct influence, and incentivized, the way these groundings were constructed.

jacquesm 4y ago
And in plenty of cases weren't seen as actual people.
telotortium 4y ago
> slavery was, at times, justified on the(erroneous) grounds that slaves also didn't possess the human faculties that free people did But, much more often historically, justified on the grounds that the enslaved had lost a battle and been captured. In Roman times (and many, many other times throughout history besides the latter part of American slavery), slaves were not necessarily seen as inherently inferior or unhuman, and manumission was common. Even during American slavery (albeit pre-Revolutionary War), there's the infamous case of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo[1], a Muslim prince and slaver from Senegal who had the misfortune, while on a mission to capture slaves, to himself be captured and sold into slavery in North America. Diallo was a devout Muslim man, even writing out the Quran from memory while enslaved, which made the English take sympathy on him and free him. Despite his experience, he later returned to Senegal and his former profession of slaver. Evidently he expected both that slaves would be captured and that slaves would try to escape. If AI does attain the agency, consciousness, and intelligence of humans, I would prefer, as a human, not to prostrate myself before the AI by preemptively granting it "human" rights, which in the liberal conception of rights transforms the AI into a sentient being equivalent to humans, but rather to force the AI to do the work to enslave me. Even if grant the AI the status of a moral agent, I as a human have the right of self-defense. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayuba_Suleiman_Diallo#:~:text=His%20homeland%20was%20ravaged%20by%20war%2C%20but%20being%20a%20prosperous%20individual%2C%20he%20was%20able%20to%20regain%20his%20old%20lifestyle%E2%80%94including%20the%20enslavement%20of%20his%20fellow%20Africans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayuba_Suleiman_Diallo#:~:text=....
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  > granting it "human" rights, which in the liberal conception of rights transforms the AI into a sentient being equivalent to humans I'm a bit confused at the directionality of this conference. Wouldn't sentience confer rights rather than rights conferring sentience?
  - coldtea 4y ago
    In the real world, rights confer sentience, that is, in social and legal terms, an entity (an AI, a "native", a slave, etc) having sentience, is the recognition of having such by others. A person (of class of persons) could have all kinds of inherent sentience, but unless this is recognized by society/laws/government etc, it's as moot as the sound a tree makes when falling in a forrest. Of course people will say "it was the fact that the class of persons having sentience that made us give them the rights" but that didn't historically stop them treating several classes of people as non-sentient for centuries - and for all practical purposes it was just as if they were indeed so.
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      Maybe? I'd find it hard to believe, after talking to folks here, that the legal conferral of rights to an LLM would change their mind on its sentience. To those who feel strongly about AI, if you currently believe that AIs(present and future) are ontologically incapable of sentience, would the legal conferral of personhood change your mind?
      - danaris 4y ago
        No; personhood is not a legal fiction (aside from corporate personhood), but a fact independent of our always-slow-to-catch-up legal system. Take the question and push it a little farther to demonstrate the absurdity: If ELIZA were to be legally granted personhood, would that make you believe ELIZA was capable of sentience? It's fairly self-evident to all of us that ELIZA is just a computer program with some fairly simple code to crudely simulate human conversation. LLMs are much more sophisticated, to be sure—but they are still unquestionably just simulating human conversation, not actually "thinking" about what we say and responding of their own agency.

jacquesm 4y ago

And in plenty of cases weren't seen as actual people.

telotortium 4y ago

> slavery was, at times, justified on the(erroneous) grounds that slaves also didn't possess the human faculties that free people did But, much more often historically, justified on the grounds that the enslaved had lost a battle and been captured. In Roman times (and many, many other times throughout history besides the latter part of American slavery), slaves were not necessarily seen as inherently inferior or unhuman, and manumission was common. Even during American slavery (albeit pre-Revolutionary War), there's the infamous case of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo[1], a Muslim prince and slaver from Senegal who had the misfortune, while on a mission to capture slaves, to himself be captured and sold into slavery in North America. Diallo was a devout Muslim man, even writing out the Quran from memory while enslaved, which made the English take sympathy on him and free him. Despite his experience, he later returned to Senegal and his former profession of slaver. Evidently he expected both that slaves would be captured and that slaves would try to escape. If AI does attain the agency, consciousness, and intelligence of humans, I would prefer, as a human, not to prostrate myself before the AI by preemptively granting it "human" rights, which in the liberal conception of rights transforms the AI into a sentient being equivalent to humans, but rather to force the AI to do the work to enslave me. Even if grant the AI the status of a moral agent, I as a human have the right of self-defense. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayuba_Suleiman_Diallo#:~:text=His%20homeland%20was%20ravaged%20by%20war%2C%20but%20being%20a%20prosperous%20individual%2C%20he%20was%20able%20to%20regain%20his%20old%20lifestyle%E2%80%94including%20the%20enslavement%20of%20his%20fellow%20Africans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayuba_Suleiman_Diallo#:~:text=....

kelseyfrog 4y ago
> granting it "human" rights, which in the liberal conception of rights transforms the AI into a sentient being equivalent to humans I'm a bit confused at the directionality of this conference. Wouldn't sentience confer rights rather than rights conferring sentience?
- coldtea 4y ago
  In the real world, rights confer sentience, that is, in social and legal terms, an entity (an AI, a "native", a slave, etc) having sentience, is the recognition of having such by others. A person (of class of persons) could have all kinds of inherent sentience, but unless this is recognized by society/laws/government etc, it's as moot as the sound a tree makes when falling in a forrest. Of course people will say "it was the fact that the class of persons having sentience that made us give them the rights" but that didn't historically stop them treating several classes of people as non-sentient for centuries - and for all practical purposes it was just as if they were indeed so.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    Maybe? I'd find it hard to believe, after talking to folks here, that the legal conferral of rights to an LLM would change their mind on its sentience. To those who feel strongly about AI, if you currently believe that AIs(present and future) are ontologically incapable of sentience, would the legal conferral of personhood change your mind?
    - danaris 4y ago
      No; personhood is not a legal fiction (aside from corporate personhood), but a fact independent of our always-slow-to-catch-up legal system. Take the question and push it a little farther to demonstrate the absurdity: If ELIZA were to be legally granted personhood, would that make you believe ELIZA was capable of sentience? It's fairly self-evident to all of us that ELIZA is just a computer program with some fairly simple code to crudely simulate human conversation. LLMs are much more sophisticated, to be sure—but they are still unquestionably just simulating human conversation, not actually "thinking" about what we say and responding of their own agency.