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Slaves come readily to mind, but also pets. We buy and sell dogs all the time (under the guise of “adoption”) and expect them to be obedient and helpful—but als

Slaves come readily to mind, but also pets. We buy and sell dogs all the time (under the guise of “adoption”) and expect them to be obedient and helpful—but also do our best to treat them well. For a being of lesser intelligence than a human, I think that’s fine; still, we should treat our equals equally, and robots will someday equal us.

eurleif 15y ago
Dogs are animals like us, so they have, or might have, consciousness. Robots most likely won't, regardless of how intelligent they may be, unless we discover what causes consciousness to occur and use that knowledge as the basis for implementing robot AI.
- evincarofautumn 15y ago
  As a pragmatist, I’m willing to assume anything that’s indistinguishable from a conscious being is indeed conscious. In other words, understanding how a robot’s brain works does not preclude said brain from harbouring true consciousness—otherwise, studying our own brains would be a kind of very slow intellectual suicide.
- lurker14 15y ago
  Why do you assume that consciousness is unlikely to be created accidentally? It already happened once, with humans.
- astrodust 15y ago
  Consciousness could be some kind of emergent phenomenon, so where the conditions are right it can spontaneously occur. The brain is an environment where this happens quite commonly, but there are occasions where that breaks down and it fails, sometimes shattering into multiple independent sub-consciousnesses or failing entirely and falling into a vegetative state. We may not need to discover anything, but instead let the machinery re-organize and evolve to discover itself.
- jdietrich 15y ago
  It's a specious argument - we have no testable definition of "consciousness" or even any evidence that such a phenomenon exists. Slavery was often justified with the argument that black people didn't have souls. It's just as baseless as arguing that computers are unlikely to have "consciousness". Without evidence that there is some fundamental difference between a biological and artificial mind, we must assume that a self-aware AI is entitled to the same rights as any other self-aware being.
  - eurleif 15y ago
    >or even any evidence that such a phenomenon exists. You have evidence of your own consciousness, just as I have evidence of my own. >we must assume that a self-aware AI is entitled to the same rights as any other self-aware being. What's your testable definition of self-awareness? Is the 'top' command self-aware because it can see its own process?
    - true_religion 15y ago
      I do not have evidence of your consciousness. As far as I'm concerned you're a biological robot.
lurker14 15y ago
Adoption is a loaded word that needs to be unpacked. Adoption is not buying or selling a pet, just like adoption of a human is not buying or selling. Rescuing a pet from a shelter, while paying for medical expenses or even rescue expenses, is not buying/selling. Buying a pet from a pet store or mill is buying/selling. It's important to distinguish adoption of an orphan pet/human (where the only payment is for care expenses) to adoption of a pet/human that was created/capture expressly for sale. Breeding is a hazy middle ground, which I suppose is what you first had in mind with "adoption"
- evincarofautumn 15y ago
  Yeah, I was a bit harsh. Still, even when rescuing a pet from a shelter, you are gaining ownership, which is somewhat different from adopting a human. I think that’s an important distinction, even though I also don’t see it as inherently degrading to be considered property. A dog’s notion of property is basically the same as every other animal’s: you can keep what you can defend. We defend our pets in the same way we defend our friends and family. In some sense, our debts of gratitude make us all property to someone.
true_religion 15y ago
Not all robots will be our equals. It's possible that we could devise robots who are smarter than us, but also possible that we could devise machines who are only half as intelligent as a human being, and slavishly devoted to serving the human race.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

eurleif 15y ago

Dogs are animals like us, so they have, or might have, consciousness. Robots most likely won't, regardless of how intelligent they may be, unless we discover what causes consciousness to occur and use that knowledge as the basis for implementing robot AI.

evincarofautumn 15y ago
As a pragmatist, I’m willing to assume anything that’s indistinguishable from a conscious being is indeed conscious. In other words, understanding how a robot’s brain works does not preclude said brain from harbouring true consciousness—otherwise, studying our own brains would be a kind of very slow intellectual suicide.
lurker14 15y ago
Why do you assume that consciousness is unlikely to be created accidentally? It already happened once, with humans.
astrodust 15y ago
Consciousness could be some kind of emergent phenomenon, so where the conditions are right it can spontaneously occur. The brain is an environment where this happens quite commonly, but there are occasions where that breaks down and it fails, sometimes shattering into multiple independent sub-consciousnesses or failing entirely and falling into a vegetative state. We may not need to discover anything, but instead let the machinery re-organize and evolve to discover itself.
jdietrich 15y ago
It's a specious argument - we have no testable definition of "consciousness" or even any evidence that such a phenomenon exists. Slavery was often justified with the argument that black people didn't have souls. It's just as baseless as arguing that computers are unlikely to have "consciousness". Without evidence that there is some fundamental difference between a biological and artificial mind, we must assume that a self-aware AI is entitled to the same rights as any other self-aware being.
- eurleif 15y ago
  >or even any evidence that such a phenomenon exists. You have evidence of your own consciousness, just as I have evidence of my own. >we must assume that a self-aware AI is entitled to the same rights as any other self-aware being. What's your testable definition of self-awareness? Is the 'top' command self-aware because it can see its own process?
  - true_religion 15y ago
    I do not have evidence of your consciousness. As far as I'm concerned you're a biological robot.

lurker14 15y ago

Adoption is a loaded word that needs to be unpacked. Adoption is not buying or selling a pet, just like adoption of a human is not buying or selling. Rescuing a pet from a shelter, while paying for medical expenses or even rescue expenses, is not buying/selling. Buying a pet from a pet store or mill is buying/selling. It's important to distinguish adoption of an orphan pet/human (where the only payment is for care expenses) to adoption of a pet/human that was created/capture expressly for sale. Breeding is a hazy middle ground, which I suppose is what you first had in mind with "adoption"

evincarofautumn 15y ago
Yeah, I was a bit harsh. Still, even when rescuing a pet from a shelter, you are gaining ownership, which is somewhat different from adopting a human. I think that’s an important distinction, even though I also don’t see it as inherently degrading to be considered property. A dog’s notion of property is basically the same as every other animal’s: you can keep what you can defend. We defend our pets in the same way we defend our friends and family. In some sense, our debts of gratitude make us all property to someone.

true_religion 15y ago

Not all robots will be our equals. It's possible that we could devise robots who are smarter than us, but also possible that we could devise machines who are only half as intelligent as a human being, and slavishly devoted to serving the human race.

deleted 15y ago
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