Soon robots rights?

[fafner]

Maybe it is not for tomorrow, but the UK government nevertheless conducted a survey about the possibility that robots demand legal rights.
Interesting to have a look

[Astro Forever]

And the direct link to the full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6200005.stm

To be completely honest... this is kind of scary to think we'd have to provide healthcare and housing. Suddenly I wonder on which side I really am when I think of A Robot President, for example. However, I guess that if they pay taxes too, then the system would still work. Maybe it would work even better, after all.

Hopefully they'll make them as cute as Astro! That would make it easy to be all for it!

[stoogefreaky]

We'll just have to see when I plan to make a movie on that.

[CommanderEVE]

This really caught my eye; it's a very interesting topic fafner. I was thinking the same thing.

This could be a bad thing or a good thing, this leads to the 2003 version of Astro boy story line. Where humans build robot then the robots started to dislike the humans because they where not having the rights. in the far future I believe this would lead to confliction on each other just like what happens in my story I made where the Helta beings made the Delta beings to show the rest of the universe on what they can do. but as a result there was a war on the Delta beings not getting there rights, the story is quite bloody and violent but I made it like that to show what war is really like, any way I’m getting off topic... as I was saying there will be people what will love the idea and people who will protest agents it. but for some weird reason when I was a kid I had dreams about robots ruling the world, I know that sounds crazy to some people but that could be a possibility, maybe not taking the world over but, becoming just as on-top as the humans.

If this dose continues we will start seeing protests.

[jeffbert]

I do not think it will be anytime soon that Robots are granted rights. Asimov envisioned analogue computers so complex, that even the slightest flaw would prevent any level of function. Thus, people were assured that if the robot functioned, it was not a threat to human life.*

However, with the rise of digital computers, it is possible to produce robots capable of suddenly changing behavior from peaceful to violent. Who is going to assure the public that the robots' 'brains' are not equipped with such features? Even then, if the robot fails to distinguish humans from other things, it may cause harm. Then there is the affliction with which I am familiar: The motor control failure. The poor robot wants to give a customer change for his $20, but because of a sudden failure, the hand goes for his throat instead.

If we are talking about biological robots, I think that ethics will stand in the way of their development for a very long time. Thus, only non-living robots will be developed, at least by 'civilized' nations. But if they ever develop autonomous robots, ones that can carry out complex instructions without being guided every step, I am sure there will be heavy regulations to ensure humans' safety. I know they have already made experimental robots that can understand human speach (with limitations), & execute certain instructions, but these are a long way from being produced commercially.

*Note that despite this, certain stories had robots banned on inhabited planets.

[fafner]

As a computer scientist, I would not be surprised that robots would become sentient in a very long time (probably much more than decades), if ever. Obviously, sentientness (does this word exist?) can't exist without emotions (which seem to set the "goals" we are seeking, such as hapiness), and no one really knows what they are. So much to encode them into a program...
On another topic, I have always wondered why people are afraid of robots because they would be unpredictable. Humans are by definition unpredictable, while on the other hand robots would obey their internal program. Of course, there could always be bugs in the program, causing a robot to grab a human's throat instead of something the human would hold in his/her hand, as jeffbert was saying. But what about a random human going crazy and starting shooting everyone? I have always thought that humans aren't reliable in a general way. No offense to anyone I hope
Something interesting I thought about is that artifical intelligence/sentientness/consciousness might arise spontaneously. We are witnessing a chaos not very far from life in the Internet: think about virusses, spam, or other cyber-pests. People are in an arms race: someone writes a new virus, a new technic to bypass spam filters, etc. Someone else will find a way to block the new virus, spam, whetever. A new cyber-pest will be written, or an old one will be modified, then it will be blocked, and so on... This is the kind of ecosystem of the early life: total chaos with structures emerging. I have no idea about how intelligence/sentientness/consciousness could emerge from that, but when I think about how the brain works, I finally think the same thing.

[CommanderEVE]

Well the closest thing I can think of that is close to a hard working robot is an un-manned aircraft. And I think there are robots helping the public in Japan.

[jeffbert]

As a computer scientist, I would not be surprised that robots would become sentient in a very long time (probably much more than decades), if ever. Obviously, sentientness (does this word exist?) can't exist without emotions (which seem to set the "goals" we are seeking, such as hapiness), and no one really knows what they are. So much to encode them into a program...

Are you saying that Vulcans are not sentient?

But seriously, from a psychological perspective, & in one of my classes, we were asked about this, how can one person know that another has consciousness? Our knowledge of others' conciousness comes from 2 things:

1. The assumption that because we are all human, we have similar thoughts, etc.
2. the observation of their behavior

* in the following discussion, when I use the word 'soul,' I am not talking about anything that survives the death of the body, but rather the animating force that gives you life: 'Breath,' 'pneuma,' etc.

Suppose that there were a robot that behaved in a way that suggested that it was conscious. Humans would presume that it was merely immitating human behavior. That because they knew it was man made, etc, it could not really be conscious, or should I say that it could not have a soul*. The idea that we know** what animates a robot, how its brain works, while we are still trying to learn how the living brain works, seems to be a factor in the discrimination against robots.

**Some of us, electrical engineers, computer scientists, & others who are technically knowledgable know how robots think, but even technophobes should know that somebody else knows how they think.

However, a roboticist then demands the man who says so should prove that he himself has a soul*, or that he has consciousness. He could say that he himself knows that he has consciousness, but is only able to observe the external behavior of the man who questions the robot's soul.

Until Dr. Ochanomizu (Elefun) really does invent an ectopsychoscope as in the manga and 1963 versions of Lightning man (Electro, invisible robot) the subjective nature of each person's thoughts, emotions, etc could call into question whether anyone else has similar thoughts. But a robot's thoughts could be examined.

I just finished watching The Outer Limits (remake) "Fantastic Androids & Robots. "I, Robot" In both the B&W & the remake Adam Link was a robot that was facing destruction becuase he was presumed responsible for his creator's death. The remake had L Nimoy's Character succeed in having him declared a person by the court, to which he had been brought as chattel. I do not think this could happen anytime soon.

[CommanderEVE]

What if there where such thing as half human and half robot? That would be very interesting.

[fafner]

What if there where such thing as half human and half robot? That would be very interesting.

It's called a cyborg. The interesting part is the status of the brain: genuine, or "invaded" by electronic circuitry