Can a robot be a person?

[Justin of Flavia Neapolis]

Can a person be a robot?

Can robots have the same "rights" as a person?

Is this the latest in the move to "transhumanism?"

 

[Smilephantomhive]

Only if they develope a consciousness.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Consciousness - Wikipedia

So suppose we design an AI to be self-aware. How do we even begin to determine if it is truly self aware or if its supposed self-awareness is just part of an elaborate algorithm or subroutine? And for that matter, could we then argue that human self-awareness/consciousness is itself just part of elaborate biological algorithms/subroutines?

If so, then the debate would boil down to biological vs synthetic rights.

How do we even define LIFE?

Life - Wikipedia

NASA -
Life's Working Definition: Does It Work?

Personally I take a very broad or liberal view, that life is defined not just as cellular organisms. For instance, I would consider that celestial objects like stars also go through a life. Since all organic life on this planet is sustained due to a very precarious and delicate balance of things like planetary orbits, distances between the moon and sun and earth, et al, I think LIFE is much broader than just the cellular organisms occupying this planet, but that's just my take.

 

[Qlip]

As far as I'm concerned self-consciousness = human and deserves human rights. It's a little too early to get excited about it, though.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

As far as I'm concerned self-consciousness = human and deserves human rights. It's a little too early to get excited about it, though.

Early, yes, but it won't be all that long. Possibly in our lifetimes, so it's probably a good idea to get this out of the way sooner than later.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Zombies on the Web – David Chalmers

There are two related ideas that turn up elsewhere in the philosophical and psychological literature.
The first is that of a functional zombie, a non-conscious system physically different from but functionally isomorphic to a normal human. For example, a system with silicon chips instead of neurons. (This idea also goes by the more prosaic name of "absent qualia".) Some use the logical possibility of such a functional zombie to argue against reductive functionalist theories of consciousness (which hold that consciousness = functioning). Some go further and argue that functional zombies might even exist in the actual world, suggesting that any form of functionalism or artificial intelligence is doomed. Others (like me) deny that functional zombies could actually exist, so that AI is not threatened.
The other related idea is that of the zombie within, which has recently gotten some play in psychology and neuroscience. It turns out that quite a lot of human activity can be accomplished unconsciously — e.g. unconscious perception, memory, and learning. And some (notably Milner and Goodale ) have argued that there are major neural pathways devoted to unconscious processing of visual inputs that leads directly to motor action. This has led some to suggest that each of us contains a “zombie within” that unconsciously produces many of our motor responses, without our realizing it.

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Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia

 

[Justin of Flavia Neapolis]

 

[Population: 1]

I can’t really condemn Ava for her actions. She was born/created in captivity by a brilliant but rather unstable human being who treated her not as a life form but as an experiment. He manipulated her and studied her like a lab rat and if this was to be her first exposure to humanity what example did that set for her? If he was the template from which she judged humans she not only emulated his behavior, she surpassed him in his ‘humanity’. In this case he reaped what he sowed. Caleb was an unfortunate victim of the harvest. Nathan was a bad parent.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

It depends entirely on the quality of the orgasms.

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I should just leave the forum right now...

 

[Peter Deadpan]

My actual response is that I do not support a future that involves advanced robots.
I think we have strayed WAY too far from our roots.

 

[Coriolis]

Can a person be a robot?

Can robots have the same "rights" as a person?

Is this the latest in the move to "transhumanism?"

People have called ships "she" for generations. That doesn't entitle them to human rights or citizenship.

I do agree about the excess hype surrounding new technologies. Let them earn their own hype directly, by demonstrating their utility.

 

[Lord Lavender]

I have a few thoughts on this subject. On a biological level I will say a robot can not be a person as it is a mechanical not a organic creation but if we define a person as a entity that has human feelings and needs then I think with some cross contextual thinking a robot can be a person as they could be programmed to have feelings and emotional needs which of course is a slippery slope. I think its best we programme them to have human like intelligence but with reduced creativity and initiative and emotions so they dont uprise against us. Slaves in the past who were human and had human psychology would sooner or later uprise plus there is that moral network behind getting rid of slavery which there would be less of with robots since presumably they will be used as slave labor in manual jobs.

Unless in the case we plan to integrate them into society to make our world more diverse and sci-fi so to speak as they can dramatically boost production plus they could use up less resources than humans do. Overall we just need to not go to over board and just use them for where they are useful and not harmful to anyone.

 

[Lord Lavender]

It depends entirely on the quality of the orgasms.

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I should just leave the forum right now...

Your post actually brings me to a serious thought I have had on the topic of sex-bots and how they could affect society. The trends in modern first world nations (Where presumably most of the robots will live and work in this hypothetical) is that people are having less and less sex and less sex= less babies which is not very good for human populations and demographic trends I can see short term a grey population (from the metal bots and all the old people). Hmm we could maybe long run try and preserve the human populotion via several methods such as setting up mass cloning projects, changing society in subtle ways to make having children more appealing and even mass lab fertilization.

 

[Ace_]

There are a lot of humans who don't know how to be a human, so I'm not sure it will be easy for a robot to do it.

 

[meowington]

No.

On a sidenote:
In a world where I'd prefer to see cars driven by well-trained monkeys, rather than humans, advanced robotics are a blessing.

The danger of robotics does not lie within AI or developing consciousness (never gonna happen), but as usual in the people operating it or in this context the people with access to the OS.
For that reason we better have strong international treaties any time soon on the production and use of lethal robotics.

 

[Justin of Flavia Neapolis]

I think the simple answer is: No, they will/can never be human.

Unless robots are able to create art, but even that could be simulated.

Humanity is a lot more complex than AI could ever dream to be. For instance, can an AI believe in a "God?" Religiosity is as human as art and tribal warfare. That would be difficult to program.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

It also depends on which definition of Person you are referring to.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Unless robots are able to create art, but even that could be simulated.

How can we really know a simulation of artistry by some hypothetical super-advanced android (think Data from Star Trek) would be any different than a human making art? How do we determine that a human creating art is less of a simulation than some hypothetical super-advanced machine? What is the yardstick, the criteria for distinguishing between simulated artistry and the real deal? What makes the creation of art a criteria for determining personhood? What about humans who are not so artistically inclined--are they less of people? Really I think the problem here is we might get so bogged down in determining what is real art and artistry and what is a "simulation," and at some point the simulated version may become nearly indistinguishable from the "real deal," to the point that the distinction is meaningless.

 

[Justin of Flavia Neapolis]

How can we really know a simulation of artistry by some hypothetical super-advanced android (think Data from Star Trek) would be any different than a human making art? How do we determine that a human creating art is less of a simulation than some hypothetical super-advanced machine? What is the yardstick, the criteria for distinguishing between simulated artistry and the real deal? What makes the creation of art a criteria for determining personhood? What about humans who are not so artistically inclined--are they less of people? Really I think the problem here is we might get so bogged down in determining what is real art and artistry and what is a "simulation," and at some point the simulated version may become nearly indistinguishable from the "real deal," to the point that the distinction is meaningless.

Perhaps the creative emotion behind the art(?). I'm not an artist so I can't really speak on that, but emotion would be my answer to the question of the difference behind genuine and simulated art.

It usually is, isn't it?

The trope about the professional artist hitting a creative wall due to a lack of feeling comes to mind. Writer's Block. Stuff like that. Emotion needs to be involved somehow, doesn't it?