Imagine that at some point in the future we will have humanoid robots that are very much like humans in look and feel and similar in cognative capacity. Capable of cooking, cleaning, building, repairing and even sexually pleasing.
1. Would you purchase one of these machines?
2. Would that be considered slavery of some type?
3. What kind of laws would need to exist to prevent humans from abusing them?
4. If not to purchase them and use them, why build them to begin with?
I’d be worried if I purchased one, I’d be supporting an industry creating a product that’s almost guaranteed to eventually rise up and kill us all.
On the other hand, if I don’t get one, who will make me dinner while pleasing me sexually? It’s quite the conundrum.
We could have another civil war over this.
I tend to think the cognitive capacity idea will never pan out. So looking the same and feeling the same is not a big deal if the cognitive capacity is just us getting better at teaching computers to make the right decisions at a particular moment. If we can’t recreate the actual part that makes them human, then they are not human. However, based on your question and the ability to make them really human then it would be wrong to make them slaves.
@TheTheologiansCafe – Well… they will never be human per se. And even if they aren’t fully cognative in the sense that humans are but similar enough, would it still be wrong to make them slaves or would it be ok?
I sometimes wonder if this is just short sighted on our part. There was a time when black people didn’t have a soul and thus it was ok that they were slaves. However we came to realize this was our own shortsightedness. Could the same be true of such machines? On the other hand, as I stated, if they aren’t here to serve us what’s the point in building them?
I sense I-robot…. AI …with a twist. well I guess it might not be slavery at first but once they recognize who they are they can retaliate and want freedom and equal rights. I wouldn’t buy one myself because it takes away work from those who actually need even if it’s faster and better. People who build them and make is just like making anything else… those do build them do it make things easier and save money and time.
People regardless would use them whether they purchase them or not… if this happened it would just become another controversy. I just say, Don’t build them and we’ll avoid a lot of trouble.
@roxics – I think the issue with black people was that they were in fact human. So that made it different. I think some of these same issues can be raised with animals because they have human like qualities. But for me, computers show no signs of showing any of those human like qualities that even animals share.
1. no for same answers given above but mainly paranoia
2. i don’t think so cause they wouldnt have their own minds/ soul / heart/ conscience so yes we would be exploiting their “bodies” for work so yes it would be a slavery system but if it’s their purpose and their have no will of their own how can we hold them against their will?
3. 3 laws of robotics don’t sound good?
4. right. none. i’m not saying i wouldn’t be interested in the sexual pleasing part but i still wouldnt buy one. again, paranoia among other things
@pinktiger335 – ditto
@pinktiger335 – You bring up a very valid point. It takes away work from humans. Even if we were to create a law that says you cannot use them in industry, I don’t that would fly and second, there would be a quite a few that would break that law. But will people just NOT build them? Something tells me the curiousity of mankind will attempt to build them just to see if they can.
@mysterygirl3000 – True. if they have no will of their own, we can’t exactly be holding them against their will. Our will is their will. But then we get into questions about what free will actually is. If these things reach a certain level of intelligence do we need to instill some sense of free will in order for them to be able to make choices properly. Artificial Intelligence researchers now understand that a certain degree of emotion is required for choices to be made. Otherwise a computer that has not be preprogrammed to make a certain choice will infinitely weigh the differences between which is better Chocolate or Vanilla without ever making a choice, as neither is truly better it just comes down to emotional preferance.
The question I want to answer with this is: did I miss an article where they say they were going to work on a robot or humanoid that does all this?
Some have argued against animals rights saying that the animals we eat would not exist if it were not for us raising them for food, therefore, good in the world is enhanced even if they are eaten eventually.
@roxics – We human and we make more mistakes than figure out how to fix things… I think that curiosity has already started and they might be being built or prototypes or even the idea on paper on the possible functions. People are always trying to play this God or image that give power to the human race even though we’re technically on top of the food change so we don’t have to prove anything but whose to say that that discovery cannot lead to a different one that might be needed in order to explore life outside our little world. (sorry about that long run-on)
Laws don’t work well if they have a mind of their own… we only learn laws to break them.. that’s what I learned in Music theory. We spend years learning how to build a foundation to later on learn that we can break the rules, it’s how life works. Some one or something will always we there to disobey. Besides we know that we cannot build something as complex to understand logic how we do if we even have trouble understand… we would have trouble of evolution within science.
@mynameisblueskye – I think that is inevitable. But yes there are many such books and articles out there. Check out “Love and Sex with Robots” as one such book. One that I have nearly completed reading myself but haven’t picked it up in a while.
@FoliageDecay – You know it’s funny you bring this up because my girlfriend and I were just watching a nature documentary last night and it’s amazing just what animals will do to eat. Birds stealing other young birds, whales coming ashore to eat baby sea lions, etc. My girlfriend even said, geez nature is really cruel when you think about it. She’s right, our human morality is really our own creation, nature operates under nonjudgemental standards. Even we as human animlas do things to other animals that if done to a human being would land us on death row. While there are many that will fight for proper treatment of animals, we’ll still put a dog down if it attacks another human being. Even if that human being was abusing that dog and trying to get it to fight with them. We, like other animals look out for our own. It’s a really primal form a thinking and it will no doubt carry over into the robotics age.
@roxics – I hypothesize that morality is a function of human evolution that made us able to get along within a community. The boundaries of that community define the boundaries of a persons more sentiments.
Since international trade became big, many of us developed a larger sense of community that our instincts extended too many simply on the fact of their being human.
@pinktiger335 – True. Whenever someone brings up Asimovs three laws I always kind of smile. Even if a robot follows such laws there are too many unknown factors in a given situation where those law may be broken and the robot is not even aware it is breaking them. Even we human beings break laws we are unaware of. Or do things to break a law out of circumstance.
These three laws are supposed to prevent a robot from harming humans, but the universe is an interesting thing and those laws are really self-serving on the part of humanity. Why should a robot not harm us? if a human being is about to kill another human being in cold blooded murder I would hope that robot would kick the ass of said assailant. There are just too many unknown factors for such laws to work. But I’m asking more about laws for humans. What laws would or should we put in place to protect robots from us? Or would it be perfectly ok for a man to buy a female robot and then spend the night getting his kicks by slashing her to pieces with a kitchen knife? Or would other humans being find this behavior far too grusome and sick (because these machiens are so close to looking and acting like humans) that we would need to outlaw such behavior? If so how would we punish this behavior? It is his property right?
@FoliageDecay – And I agree. The question is whether or not we will feel this way about advanced robots one day. If so will we eventually treat them like we do other human beings or will they always be lower class simply because they are our creation?
@roxics – I wrote a thesis paper for undergrad about whether or not human embryos should have moral status. I argued for the personal experience view–which came from someone else whose name I forget. Essentially experiencing the world like a human being makes something have moral status. So E.T. and genetically modified rats to be as intelligent as humans would have protections as well.
But if we can develop a standard to determine whether these machines appear to have this personal experience then under that view they could be seen as having moral status equal to a human.
The human biological material view would give rights to an embryo, but not to a robot that experiences the world like a human.
@roxics – Firstly, to protect said robot we need to identify said purpose. I sure like any computer we wouldn’t just abuse or break it because it surely cost a nice amount of money. Now, damaging other’s property also comes with consequences. And if a man did buy a female tendensies regardless of whether they can feel we would surely now that a person with destructive nature especially like that that dehumanizes might be prone to murder. I think all destructive nature would cause people to question the mind of any person who cause harm for any reason. And yes you bring in a valid point with “Property”… and it becomes even more so complicated… then we would go to court with conservative saying it’s just a tool and liberals wanting them to have rights. And we’ve just have another battle in legal system but this time identifying the personified robots vs. (insert a person) … We’ll just save us the trouble if we don’t even build them. In fact don’t even try to make robots human like or even create a smart enough system that will make them question. We have many machines with purpose and those don’t question they just do… but even an owner would destroy such valuable machinery. Idk… this is a good topic.
Random props.
it’s kind of hard to say… If it’s like in the movie I-Robot, it’s debatable… Robot’s = machine and machines have no feeling or emotions… but if what you’re saying is regarding the stem cell controversey, than it’s definitely wrong…
I’m already saving up the 49 bucks plus shipping for that little thing that buzzes around mopping the floor.
Has an artist ever made something that they fall in love with it? I suppose G-d has made humans in similar fashion and G-d loves us…..
Nowadays if you have money you can pay to have your home cleaned. And others have an arrangement to have cleaning and sex done. I suppose if a machine or clone is made to do such things at a reasonable cost then yeah we can start to speculate.
However I think we may dead end with an energy shortage. War breaks out and the earth is destroyed seems to be our future unless we can ensure that some kind of energy source can serve mankind.