I always considered them mostly synthetic, with some external human-like features. That would change things for me, but I think probably the most interesting yo

I always considered them mostly synthetic, with some external human-like features. That would change things for me, but I think probably the most interesting you said was the final sentences. My question to you then would be: how would you know for sure that a transistor/digital ”being” is actually suffering, and not just mimicking human suffering in order to fulfill whatever internal cost-minimizing process it follows? And by the way what does it even mean to suffer, concretely and unambiguously? For example, a breakup or a job loss causes people to suffer, but certainly we are not going to prohibit them. And what if we make them unable to feel pain, would it then be acceptable…?