Ethical Guidelines to Protect Robots From Abuse
This is so ridiculous. Ethical guidelines are being drafted to protect humans from robot abuse and robots from human abuse. First, robots are inanimate objects. I don't care how sophisticated or "intelligent" they become, they could no more be abused than my vacuum cleaner or the Dell computer on which I am writing this post. Sophisticated processing of information is not the same thing as becoming a "being." Even the most sophisticated robots will always be inanimate.
The story also contains this point: Other bodies are also thinking about the robotic future. Last year a UK government study predicted that in the next 50 years robots could demand the same rights as human beings. If robots could really become so elevated that they would "demand rights," there is a simple solution: Don't construct them! We have choices in this regard. Because we can do something--highly doubtful in this matter--that doesn't mean we should to it.
Why don't these people tackle real problems?
Labels: Robot Rights
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 11:40 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Wesley, these people believe that if we wait to tackle these matters until they become problems then it will be too late. Their beliefs are based in a view of the future that differs from yours -- not because they are simply stupid, despite your appeal to ridicule -- because they project present trends differently than you project them. For you, it is obvious that we should not create computers that are sophisticated enough to request ethical consideration. For me, that is not obvious. Less smoke and more warmth may result from trying to understand why we differ in this.
Maybe they watch a little too much Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, &c. . . .
I don't think you can have real intelligence without life, without a soul. Artificial intelligence doesn't mean anything but the ability to perform really good math and logic. To quote Mr. T, this is absoludicrous.
Lincoln: Thanks for stopping by. A little smoke makes life interesting. I am not personally attacking anybody. As an officially designated "bio-Luddite" who is supposedly an enemy of the transhuman future, I take much more than I dish out.
It strikes me that in a world where getting people treated humanely remains a huge undertaking, worrying about robot ethics is escapism. I am not saying they should not be allowed to do it. Just, that there might be more beneficial uses of their time, that's all.
If and when the capacities of robots, which would essentially be mobile computers, becomes such that people anthropomorphically attribute personal life to them and desire to convey personhood and citizenship, we will have become so disoriented about the crucial importance of human life that it will not bode at all well. Computer/robots won't care. They will just be acting per their programs.
But while you are here, Lincoln, WHY would it be good, in your view (if this is your view) to create robots so advcanced they demand "rights?" What benefits do you see coming from such machines?
In order to get a computer to *want* to have rights it needs to have more than simple proto-consciousness that all creatues and inanimate objects possess. It needs to have higher consciousness, and that requires a self-creating algorhythm - a program that writes itself from scratch and starts pumping out the information that it tells itself to pump out. That's essentially what we humans are - something created an original code that allowed humans to write their own programming and follow it. We *might* some day write a code for our own computers that will tell the computer to write its own code and act on it, but the odds are against it - I'm totally behind Penrose on that issue.
I don't mind thinking of robots as being "ensouled" the way all inanimate objects are, and I think that it should be obvious that people need to treat all things on this earth with respect, and all people as extensions of ourselves. We do that, we won't mess up the environment, hurt animals unnecessarily, and kill others. All will be well.
So, should someone write a code of ethics about a robot? Depends on what it has to do with. If someone is acting out insanely toward a robod, being hurtful, programming it to respond negativly to being "hurt" or something, if you see someone acting out in an evil or aggressive way toward a robot, then there's a chance you've got a potential animal killer/child abuser/murder on your hands. It's like kids who kill the neighborhood cats for the fun of it, without any sense of true hunting delight, or a need for food, or anything like that - sadistic streak expressed through killing. So for things like that, I say, "Make laws forbidding the creation of 'pleasure robots' that are designed to take abuse." Most serial killers started off killing animals. Why give them something new to pick on.
But I don't think that's where these guys are stopping, which is why we suddenly hit the stop button. This is just plain too weird. They're not gonna make an AI machine. They're not gonna make a robot that will worry about what'll happen to it.
Everything must be programmed.
Wesley, I am sure you take more attacks than you dish out. For what it's worth, I think you have valuable things to say. Most of my disagreements with you arise when you tackle issues in the manner of this particular blog entry, in which you have not put much effort into the criticism.
You asked why I think it would be good to create robots so advanced that they demand rights. To provide some brief context for an answer to your question, I'll try to define my ideological leanings relative to terms you use regularly here -- acknowledging that I am not an expert in your terms. You champion human exceptionalism. I agree that humans are exceptional, and thus merit exceptional consideration. However, unlike you (so far as I understand), I don't see any reason to assume that human exceptionalism is itself exceptional. In other words, I imagine it possible that non-human beings could (or perhaps in worlds outside our experience already do) exhibit qualities that are as or exceptional as or more exceptional than those we now exhibit.
Why would it be a good idea to create other beings, such as robots, that exhibit exceptional qualities? For me, the answer is the same as that for this quesetion: why would it be a good idea to create children? I imagine this may sound horrible to some, particularly those who insist dogmatically on an understanding of "robot" that I would not share. The word "robot" has popular connotations that do not remotely approach the value of our children, and so I would quickly agree that it would be horrible -- worse than horrible -- to consider such creations to be even close to equal in value. Yet I suspect our robots will eventually transcend the popular connotations, to such a point that their exceptional qualities will far transcend even our own exceptional qualities as humans today. I could be wrong, of course.
Why should we care? Again, for the same reasons we should care for our children. As I see it, we and our technology are, today, like the embryos in our wives' wombs: exceptional already in potential. I have three children. I remember thinking, when each was still forming in my wife's belly, how it would be to interact with them as they grow into their potential. The thought inspired and continues to inspire me. I feel similarly toward our communal effort to conceive a future greater than that we now experience.
Lincoln: It sounds like you are saying we should climb the mountain simply because it is there.
Children, ideally, are expressions and the result of deep love. Regardless of the circumstance in which they come into the world, they are flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood--as the old saying goes. They are our progeny. They carry our hopes and dreams into the future.
But what is that a reason to create machines that could become more powerful than their makers? The challenge? This hardly seems sufficient.
You inadequately considered my response, Wesley.
Do we have children simply because we can? Some of us do, but not all of us. Do we have children for the challenge? Some of us do, but not all of us. Can our other creations be expressions of deep love? Can our other creations carry our hopes and dreams into the future? Indeed, can our other creations extend our childrens' ability to do these things? I believe so.
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