Robots could demand legal rights

Jay.

Quote:

Robots could demand legal rights
Robot Einstein, Eric Ishii Eckhardt
As robots become more intelligent they could demand more rights
Robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans, according to a study by the British government.

If granted, countries would be obligated to provide social benefits including housing and even "robo-healthcare", the report says.

The predictions are contained in nearly 250 papers that look ahead at developments over the next 50 years.

Other papers, or "scans", examine the future of space flight and methods to dramatically lengthen life spans.

"We're not in the business of predicting the future, but we do need to explore the broadest range of different possibilities to help ensure government is prepared in the long-term and considers issues across the spectrum in its planning," said Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser.

"The scans are aimed at stimulating debate and critical discussion to enhance government's short and long term policy and strategy."

Robot rights

The research was commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre.

The 246 summary papers, called the Sigma and Delta scans, were complied by futures researchers, Outsights-Ipsos Mori partnership and the US-based Institute for the Future (IFTF).

SpaceShipOne, Scaled Composites
The reports also explored the future of manned space flight

The papers look forward at emerging trends in science, health and technology.

The scans explore a diverse range of areas from the future of the gulf stream and the economic rise of India, to developments in nanotechnology and the threat posed by HIV/AIDS.

As well as assessing the current state of thinking the research also examines the possible implications for society.

The paper which addresses Robo-rights, titled Utopian dream or rise of the machines? examines the developments in artificial intelligence and how this may impact on law and politics.

The paper says a "monumental shift" could occur if robots develop to the point where they can reproduce, improve themselves or develop artificial intelligence.

The research suggests that at some point in the next 20 to 50 years robots could be granted rights.

If this happened, the report says, the robots would have certain responsibilities such as voting, the obligation to pay taxes, and perhaps serving compulsory military service.

Conversely, society would also have a duty of care to their new digital citizens, the report says.

It also warns that the rise of robots could put a strain on resources and the environment.

"These scans are tools for government to identify risks and opportunities in the future," said Sir David King.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6200005.stm

Okay, wtf.

Departure

Interesting news.

~A*D*O*R*A~

Of course. If they are sentient - and they are getting there that's for sure - then their rights and abilities will have to be recognised.

Kworb

I don't see it happening in the next 20 to 50 years, if at all. Where do you draw the line between person robots and machine robots? How do you prove a robot is intelligent, sentient, if it's just the software talking? Is appearing to be intelligent enough to actually be intelligent?

Anyway, if all this intrigues you, you should watch Battlestar Galactica

~A*D*O*R*A~

Those are the things that will have to be determined in order to arrange what 'rights' if any or at least appropriate treatment such robots/cyborgs will need to have. We also have to realise that even though we've created them it doesn't mean we'll necessarily have full control over their development if they are indeed intelligent and hence it might not even be our place to decide whether they are intelligent or not - for example we have to bear in mind that women, non white ethnicities, disabled, people with mental problems and animals weren't even considered intelligent for the longest time, and if they were it was very limited and some groups of people didn't even think (and some still don't) that they had/have feelings and/or emotions. It would take something big for people to accept that some robots/cyborgs can be intelligent let alone all of them or it would at least take a long time, probably much longer then the possible point whereby they were intelligent simply because of people not being able to comprehend or accept it.

As for appearing intelligent - I think that if something can appear to be intelligent - even when the 'intelligence' it is displaying didn't originate from itself and it's actually following some kind of instruction - then it is still intelligent enough to warrant more respect then that of other mechanical appliances/machines. See this is where we get to the intelligence vs. life bit because we could easily say that many lifeforms aren't intelligent or very intelligent and others just follow instruction or pattern without original thinking (humans can fit into that group as well) so why should they have rights? The answer is because they are alive and sentient. We then have to ask ourselves whether the opposite then counts as well - if something isn't alive but intelligent (and the extent of intelligence seems to be your question) then shouldn't it have some respect too? There are different levels of intelligence and the ability to follow instructions, particularly complicated instructions counts as intelligence because not everything or other members of the same 'species' (or machine type) could do it. The obstacle here is with entities that are not alive, because with those that are alive whether they are intelligent or not to whatever extent in accordance to whatever criteria, they still have the rights that go with being alive and more importantly - more rights for being sentient because if everything alive had the same rights then we couldn't even eat plants etc - so that's where being sentient comes into it.

Robots/cyborgs have the intelligence/life factor and then the intelligence/sentient factor - being able to follow even complex instructions doesn't necessarily make something sentient - or does it? Can we really know that? Does being able to do that give the robot/cyborg in question even the tiniest bit of a consciousness? We might not think so because we can take them apart and modify them at any time but we haven't been able to determine where the mind is really in the human body, where the consciousness really resides - it's connected to the brain of course as is everything else but we haven't as yet determined how it works, where it is and how's it's formed or whether it continues after death and as some associate it with a 'soul'. There's plenty of the brain left to learn about, so if we can't (or at least haven't yet) detemined what makes us as humans sentient it makes it difficult for us to accurately or at least completely determine it in other 'entities' especially since we are not them or in their supposed or actual 'being'. So if a robot/cyborg in question isn't sentient but intelligent to the extent that it can follow complex instruction or make complex things from simple non specific instruction then it definitely needs some respect (and they do get some of that simply because they are so expensive or 'loved' by their creators etc but it's not legal and binding). Of course, if it was the other way round i.e. sentient but not necessarily intelligent or very intelligent it would still have rights by default for being sentient.

The of course - what does intelligence mean? Can only living plus sentient entities be allowed to be minimally intelligent or docile and still have rights?

It's a difficult thing (as usual) because we're not faced with a Johnny 5/Short Circuit situation where the entity in question is obviously intelligent and feeling (both physically and mentally) we have to tread with caution but also try not to let our human ego cloud being open minded and if it turns out someone happens to be wrong about a robot/cyborg they thought was sentient and/or intelligent and turns out not to be - it's at least better to be respectful and fair then to bear down on something negatively (whilst promoting the wrong things a lot of the time I might add) which we tend to do and have done so historically.

~A*D*O*R*A~

Forgot to say:

The basic vs. complex intelligence is a question but also, what about how complex is complex? For example, we have robots/machines following very complex instructions and/or doing complex things but they don't fall into the possibly intelligent category and that can be everyday things (not just desktop computers/laptops or super computers) such as machinery in the manufacturing industries, robots/machines that also use tools themselves for example. How complex do we deem robots/cyborgs have to be in order to even qualify to be in the 'possibly intelligent and/or sentient' or 'possibly going to be intelligent and/or sentient' categories?

Then things get more philosophical - things like cars can be made anthropomorphic to humans who give them human like qualities like names, gender etc, some people even swear they have personality, even very limited ones. Now that is of course not empirically proven to mean anything but it's just a question that could get thrown in there because Science and Ethics/Philosophy have to work together in such an issue and not just for the mathematics.