Do Electric Sheep Dream of Civil Rights?

holy_calamity writes "Hot on the heals of a UK government report that predicted robots would demand citizens rights within fifty years, an Arizona state lawyer has suggested that sub-human robots should have rights too. Harming animals far below human capabilities is thought unethical — would you ever feel bad about kicking a robot dog? And can we expect militant campaigners to target robot labs as they do animal labs today?"

No bots harmed

[MECC]

No robots were harmed in the making of this comment.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

RoboPuppy mistreatment alert! RoboPuppy mistreatment alert!

Re:No bots harmed

[Yvan256]

RoboPuppy two-hours-long barking routine starting!

Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!
(... 2 hours later ...)
Woof!

RoboPuppy two-hours-long barking routine completed!

Re:No bots harmed

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> would you ever feel bad about kicking a robot dog?

I can see the legislation now:

"Laws of Robot Rights: Title MVIX, Article 12, Section 14, Subsection 8: The kicking of robot dogs shall be forbidden except for robot dogs created for the purpose of being kicked. Said kickable robot dogs shall not experience pain as a result of being kicked, either directly or as a result of bouncing into things. 'Pain', for the purpose of this subsection, shall include the perception of physical pain as well as mental anguish and mental disabilities or disfigurements or suffering as a result from experiencing the kick, whether the kick was physically painful or not. 'Kick', for the purpose of this subsection, shall include both the direct impact by the intentional foot of a human, or robot acting directly or indirectly under the orders of a human, or the subsequent impacts from bouncing around, but shall expressly not include the accidental impact of a human's foot, or the foot of a robot acting directly or indirectly under the orders of a human. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed as waiving the right of the robot dog to sue in the case of accidental kicks from humans, robots, or normal animals of any kind, pursuant to other enabling legislation in this Act or others, and this clause is severable pending court rulings."

Re:No bots harmed

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

And the inevitable Supreme Court rulings:

2027: Jeebus v. Fidooid -- A hand transplanted onto a leg counts as a kick, both as a direct impact as well as counting under the "subsequent bounces" clause.

2035: Tainted Love v. United States of America -- A bionic leg with an inherent (and at least) Class 12 intellect counts as a robotic actor for the purpose of an intentional kick, and is therefore not an accidental kick, even if the biocybernetic-half issued specific neural orders to not kick the robot dog.

2047: Brutus v. South Dakota -- A state law allowing sexbot robodogs counts as authorizing a kickable dog, but the federal law still applies in that the sexrobodogbot must not experience pain, even if it is a masochist model designed to enjoy the pain.

Heals?

[Evil Adrian]

"Hot on the heals"?

LOL

I guess we know what they're NOT teaching in schools.

Fake

[Cafe Alpha]

No doubt the first "robot" to demand civil rights will be deliberately programmed to pretend sentience and to demand civil rights.

Re:Fake

[UbuntuDupe]

Civil Rights Robot: I demand full citizenship rights.
AI skeptic: That's fuckin' retarded.
Civil Rights Robot: I'm sorry, I do not recognize your statement. Please rephrase.
Onlooker: Deep stuff, man.

Re:

[Ixne]

I think I experienced this back in the 80's.

Her name was Eliza.

Re:

[Dr Caleb]

That bitch thought I was psycho, so I had her erased. Muhahahahaha!

Re:

[Verteiron]

Prove you're not programmed to do the same :)

Re:

[rk]

No. :-)

Re:Fake

[VJ42]

I'm sorry, I do not recognize your statement. Please rephrase

Re:

[dr_dank]

"We didn't land on Radio Shack. Radio Shack landed on US!"

  - Malcolm Xbot, 2087

Re:

[ookabooka]

Define sentience. It's one thing if the robot spouts off random responses, like a chat bot. Though on closer inspection it's a great deal more complicated and more of a philisophical question really:

"I think, therefore I am." We certainly have computer that are able to analyze complex things and draw conclusions, we even have neural-network programs that don't do this thinking in a pre-programmed way, but rather they "learn".
I wrote a little AI that used a priority queue, I can tell you that the thing wa

Re:Fake

[rucs_hack]

By far the largest problem we will face if and when artificial life forms reach intelligence is not whether they will take over the world, or what rights to assign them when they come into being.

The biggest problem will be getting them to stay here at all.

If, for instance, you were made of materials that were either trivial to repair or replace, and had no aging process in the same sense as humans experience it, then what would hold you back from building a spaceship and leaving? Hundreds/thousands of years to reach another star? No problem, just set a timed reboot and wait it out. In fact, why build a proper spaceship, just cobble something together that can get you out near asteroids, take some tools, and convert an asteroid or build a ship from those raw materials available in space. When the passage of time is less important, such things become not only possible, but practically inevitable.

I think people wondering about the ethics/problems of artificial sentience (being distinct from AI, which is very A, and currently not too much actual I) miss this fundamental point. It's pure vanity to assume that an artificial life form will want to spend its time around a race that constantly starts wars, wrecks it's own planet, and is as adept at denying rights as it is of inventing them.

Then of course there's the small issue of the inference that if we 'assign' rights to Artificial life forms, we might equally decide later to 'remove' those same rights. After all, we do that with humans all the time. My moneys on the 'ooh look, I'm alive, now how do I get of this rock' eventuality....

Re:Fake

[Daniel_Staal]

Not only are they on the wrong track for AI, but they are actually on the wrong track for this problem as well.

The base reason you don't kick a dog is because it hurts the dog, and the dog can't easily be repaired, in either programming or mechanicals. (Both of which are harmed.) You have damaged the dog and nothing can be done about it. So we have rules about letting you do it.

Both programing and mechanicals of a robot, for any bot we can design today, are reparable. So there is an easier solution: If you damage a robot, you have to pay the owner to have the damage fixed, and the downtime for the repair.

Then if we ever manage to make 'smart' robots that could ask for rights, we just assign them some self-ownership. Then if you damage one, you have to pay it to so it can fix the damage. At this point the problem becomes self-solving, especially as a robot's time becomes worth more.

Re:Fake

[hey!]

Actually, there are many reasons not to kick the dog. One is that evolution has provided a self-protection mechanism for the dog. No I'm not talking about teeth; I'm talking about the mechanisms of pain and suffering. Humans also have those protectivive mechanisms; we also have empathy and imagination. These combine to make it feel wrong to kick the dog. By some ethical systems it is not wrong at all to torture an animal; by others it is.

The moral problem of kicking the robot starts much earlier, on the design boards. Do you create a robot that experiences malfunctions as suffering? It is not as necessary to a mechanism's survival, as you point out.

Poor argument

[Per Abrahamsen]

A three weeks old baby doesn't understand the concept of rights either, yet it is protected by them. Unless you want to increase the legal abortion age to around two years after birth, you have to find a better argument.

A similar argument can be made with severely retarded and some kind of insane people.

Unavoidable?

[Kadin2048]

Seems like a logical argument to me. There's no strictly rational reason why a person born without a functioning higher brain should have more rights than a German Shepherd; that they do is mostly a testament to our emotional attachment to members of our own species.

If you take on premise that there is nothing innately special about human beings (no soul, special resemblance to God, etc.), then the difference between humans and other species (particularly other higher primates) becomes one of degree rather than kind. I think it's a basically unavoidable conclusion, once you take being "anointed by God" out of the equation.

The non-hypocritical solutions, as I see it, are to either treat low-functioning homo sapiens as animals, or treat high-functioning animals (by which I mean certain species of marine mammals, chimpanzees, great apes; probably not really GSDs) as we would mentally-impaired humans.

Re:Unavoidable?

[Chris Burke]

Seems like a logical argument to me. There's no strictly rational reason why a person born without a functioning higher brain should have more rights than a German Shepherd; that they do is mostly a testament to our emotional attachment to members of our own species.

A person without a functioning higher brain is going to be way below a German Shephard in performance, and practically is going to have basically no rights worth mentioning that their necessary care-givers don't enforce, other than the right to not be murdered. A German Shephard isn't all that bright compared to a normal human, but it still lives a normal dog life, whereas this severely crippled human isn't going to have any life at all.

If you're talking about the merely handicapped, Down's Syndrome or autistics or what have you, then it is very dangerous to try to draw a line and say "people beyond this point are sub-human and should have the same rights as a dog". Many are capable of living semi-normal lives, especially if given treatement, especially as our understanding of our brains and these disabilities improves, lives that no dog could ever have because a dog doesn't have that potential.

The non-hypocritical solutions, as I see it, are to either treat low-functioning homo sapiens as animals, or treat high-functioning animals (by which I mean certain species of marine mammals, chimpanzees, great apes; probably not really GSDs) as we would mentally-impaired humans.

Well outside of true vegeable non-functioning-brain cases there is no justification for treating the mentally impaired as sub-human, hypocrisy be damned. As far as our treatment of marine mammals and apes, I do think we should treat these species with respect, though saying "treat them like mentally impaired humans" again misses the point that they are not human impaired or otherwise, they are chimps or dolphins. Treat them like chimps or dolphins. Chimps and dolphins shouldn't have the rights we give humans, they don't live in a way where they need them. The only right they need granted by us is the right to be left alone. It is not hypocritical to recognize that this is so.

It's a dangerous line to be walking, deciding which humans are worthy of the title based on performance, which is surely not going to be a neutral metric, treading close to eugenics. I don't think that's where you intended to go, I just want to point out that there is a clear line between human/not-human completely devoid of value judgements or invocations of God, whereas human/not-a-good-enough-human is a line whose enforcement has caused untold misery throughout history.

Re:

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

There's no strictly rational reason why a person born without a functioning higher brain should have more rights than a German Shepherd; that they do is mostly a testament to our emotional attachment to members of our own species.

This is actually a product of modern living standards too.

In past times, a great many infants simply died in the first year of life. Some societies did not even name children until they were a year or so old so they did not become overly attached to something that could be here one

Re:Rights

[DM9290]

I said: You attach too much significance to "rights". They are legal fictions.

your reply:
"Not in the U.S. Our Founding Fathers recognized that men were born with "natural rights". The Bill of Rights does not give us these rights, it merely recognizes them and basically says the government can't mess with them."

I'd be convinced if I considered the founding fathers to hold some kind of monopoly on truth and if I considered the Bill of Rights to be a philosophical memorandum rather than what it is : LEGISLATION.

A legal fiction is a legal fact that is true for the purposes of a court of law, without any regard to any truth in the real world.

The fact that "legally" there all men are created equal and imbued in inalienable right, does not in fact cause all men to be equal nor cause them to be imbued with anything.. or even to be CREATED for that matter. It is a paper document which directs the courts to PRETEND that it is true.

It is NOT reality, and what the founding fathers said is only relevant to what LEGALLY you can do to animals.. it says nothing about what you can MORALLY do to animals.

And yes.. the government infringes the bill of rights frequently. And the courts have allowed it to. (so has God apparently).

I said: Does man ever have a chance to put God on trial?

you replied: Every single day. A common example of this is a crisis of faith.

If that was a trial God would rotting in some prison cell with no possibility of parol for eternity.

According the Catholic faith and most god-of-abraham style religions you have no jurisdiction to question God. And to question God is a crime punishable by anything from excommunication, stoning, burning, or exile. According to Christian dogma you have a choice of FAITH for which you will be rewarded or disbelief for which you will burn in eternal hellfire.

A trial is a matter of PROOF and not FAITH.

Here is another legal fiction for you. We fantasize when a person is convicted of a crime that this means he really did it. It is a legal fiction.

It means the judge/jury found that he very most likely did it.. that the evidence shows he did it beyond a reasonable doubt, but NOT beyond all doubt. There is a small chance he didn't do it. It is a FACT that a number of people (one hopes is small, but it would be at least about 1%, but some argue it is closer to 20%) who are convicted didn't actually do anything wrong and everyone in the legal profession KNOWS THIS. Guilt is a legal FICTION. Likewise.. then a person is aquited.. that doesn't mean they didn't actually do it.

The legal system operates on legal fictions.. it is there so that in the majority of cases people are deterred from screwing around too much and making sure society can basically operate without resorting to endless violence and anarchy. It isn't there to try to find the absolute truth at any cost. The absolute truth has nothing to do with law. And likewise.. rights are NOT absolute truthes.. they are also legal fictions.. created by man to make it easier to justify certain moral concepts which are generally speaking usually true.

For example: The right to life.... the right we ignore when we execute someone.

If the right was truly INALIENABLE then no government could EVER execute someone. Because no matter how hard you try, you can not seperate an INALIENABLE THING. i.e. even the worst mass murderer or serial killer still has the right to life. And yet the US government kills them. As well as traitors. Which is strange considering a traitor obviously does not agree with the state and therefore the state by the logic of the declaration of independance has no sovereignty over him.

Am I blowing your mind? and you thought the world was so black and white didn't you?

anyway the point is... rights are a simplification. they are not essential truths of the universe.. and if you manage to prove animals have no rights it really means nothing because you can also prove humans have

Re:

[BakaHoushi]

However, people might argue that killing a serial murderer who's attacking you is not wrong, as long as the death was unavoidable.

When a Fox kills a rabbit, it does it out of necessity. For the sake of survival, the Fox needed to kill the rabbit. In fact, killing CAN be beneficial to a population. When wolves kill deer, it can prevent their populations from growing too fast. Thus, the wolves ensure their own survival, as well as making sure the remaining deer don't starve.

However, if a puppy came up to my d

Re:

[drinkypoo]

My lady used to live in a place with a lot of cats, out in the country. All of them died except one lazy-ass cat who just liked to nap on top of the fridge, and one cat who never went outside. They ended up spawning a whole brood of lazy-ass cats that just laid around where it was warm and safe. And that only took one generation :D

Re:Fake

[MrNaz]

I have never even met an animal rights activist, and I can easily see that you are about as clued in on this topic as a turnip.

The animals' rights movement is based on the idea that humans, having greater intelligence than all other species as well as the intangible quality we call "sentience", has a responsibilty for the welfare of the world, and its contents. All animals only seek resources that are needed for survival. Our desire for things over and above this, such as widescreen TVs and a bigger SUV than our neighbour, indicates that there is a fundamental difference between humans and other species.

Based on the greater burden each human places on the Earth relative to individuals of other species, human civilisation has recognised a need to act responsibly. Monkeys do not create modifications to their trees capable of polluting the entire forest into a desert, and whales don't create oil slicks. Our ability to affect far more than just our immediate surroundings and co-opt the forces of chemistry, physics and biology to our own endsis what gives rise to this moral responsibility. The fact that we can understand the very concept of "morality" is what gives us the moral responsibility to use it.

"Management" you say? So I can transport and kill them in the most economically efficient manner I please despite causing them great physical pain? The idea that a dumb animal does not need to be treated with respect because it is incapable of vocalising the concept is laughably stupid. I humbly suggest you refrain from using terms like "intellectually bankrupt". *walks away mumbling something about a pot and a kettle*

Re:

[s20451]

The animals' rights movement is based on the idea that humans, having greater intelligence than all other species as well as the intangible quality we call "sentience", has a responsibilty for the welfare of the world, and its contents.

Many "animal rights" activists, such as those in PETA, demand that animals be treated in the same manner as humans, and that there is nothing special about humans. I think this is patently false, and you appear to agree.

Your point is well taken, but it does not follow that r

Re:

[Surt]

How does programming a robot differ from programming (aka training) a dog?
I would suggest that the dog has a greater claim to rights (or really, as the animal welfare movement really desires: protections), as a dog can feel pain.

Re:

[Broken scope]

Would you want to eat them?

I'm in shit...

[grub]

My RealDoll will have me arrested for rape.

Re:I'm in shit...

[SoCalChris]

I'm guessing that if you have a realdoll, cheating isn't a big problem.

Kicking a robot dog

[thewiz]

I have three cats at home; two of them are smart enough to avoid me while I stumble around in the dark. The third cat occasionally gets his tail stepped on. The hideous screech he emits makes me walk on tip-toes for the rest of the day.

My Roomba, on the other hand, emits a soft rrr-rrr-rrr when I step on it and doesn't hiss at me afterwards. Would I kick a robotic dog? Sure, and I wouldn't worrying about it crapping on my bed afterwards.

Re:

[Lord Apathy]

Depends on how much the dog costs and what its made of. If the dog cost in excess of a couple hundred bucks, then no, I won't kick it because I can't afford another one. If the damn thing is made of steel and is heavyer than 50 pounds, then no I won't kick it because I dont' want to break my fucking toe.

Anything in between is fair game....

Re:

[bladesjester]

Well, since he has cats, my guess would be the litterbox =]

Justice

[Mr. Samuel]

Oh, come on. As if you've never had to bitch-slap a Furby.

Re:

[Lord Apathy]

Never bitch slapped one but I beat the hell out of one with a ballpen hammer. Does that count?

Re:

[gunnk]

Resisting... urge... to... mod... INSIGHTFUL...

Re:

[Thansal]

no, but we did try to light one on fire after school once(note, there is some silly law that states childrens toys must be fire resistant. Second note, this was in HS, now we would know to use alcohol to help). We then caried aroud the slightly scorched device and passed it around for the next few weeks.

As for ontopic?
If it can't think or feel why should it have rights? I have nothing stoping me (emotionaly or legaly) from crashing my paper airplane into the ground 5K times.
If I add a ruber band engine t

Great

[sorrill]

We give rights to robots while, at the same time, we take them from human beings. I love this planet.

Re:

[Daniel_Staal]

Which group is more likly to be around in a hundred years?

(I have no questions on which is going to be in charge. The robots already are, as far as I can tell...)

Priorities, priorities...

[MidVicious]

It's so good to see that the delegation of priorities regarding Human Rights has now moved Robot one notch above Dark Skinned Human.

Thankfully, it's still one notch below Canine.

Re:

[Rob T Firefly]

If robots < canines, where would K-9 [wikipedia.org] fit in?

Re:

[operagost]

Stop being a victim. Let me know when there's an America Robot College Fund and a National Association for the Advancement of Electronic People.

Just ask

[KDR_11k]

Ask a robot if it wants human rights. If it doesn't, well, that's it.

A robot only wants what it's programmed to want, if it's programmed to want something human rights cover it'll want those but if it's programmed to e.g. not mind being kicked it won't demand not to be kicked.

If there needs to be an ethical rule for robots and rights it should be not to program robots to demand something they can't get. Don't make them want to be human, don't make them want to have human rights, make them so they're "happy" in their position.

Problem solved.

Re:

[spun]

Well, who knows what the unintended consequences will be when making a machine that even aproaches the complexity of a human brain. I don't think robots built on that level will necessarily "want" things they haven't been explicitly programmed for, and I'm fairly sure that, even if we can make robots that create their own goals we can still have over-arching drives (such as 'pleasing humans feals pleasureable') that will keep robots from wanting things they can't have. But am I sure of this? No way. Maybe o

Re:

[geekoid]

Until a robot is created to think outside it's programming, as it were.
Meaning to take into considerationg and solve problems it wasn't programmed to do.

Clearly they are talking about sentience.

Re:

[kalirion]

So here's the problem, how do we know if the robot really is sentient, or is merely simulating sentience? If the robot had been programmed to "do what a sentient being would do in your situation", how do we really tell the difference?

Re:

[phoenix.bam!]

If you can't tell the difference, is there a difference?

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it a duck?

Re:

[jellomizer]

Well it could be a robotic duck design to walk like and quack like a duck. But if you toss it in the pond it will sink like a rock.

Re:

[Binary Boy]

Not if it's a robotic witch duck. Those fuckers float.

Re:

[BSAtHome]

Do not personify your computer; he doesn't like it.

Re:

[Knara]

Ask yourself if you have a clear-cut, foolproof, unambiguous way to determine if any random person on the street is sentient.

Re:

[Orange Crush]

how do we know if the robot really is sentient, or is merely simulating sentience?

How do we know if a person really is sentient, or is merely simulating sentience?

The short answer: We don't. The real problem is that we can't even define sentience clearly enough to definitively test for it. Once AI gets to the point where it appears sentient as far as anyone can tell, then it won't matter if it's really sentient. It becomes a philosophical argument.

Re:

[CosmeticLobotamy]

Along the same lines, once there are 50 million of them that can function at an 18-year-old's level (might take a while, but we've essentially got infinite monkeys with infinite IDEs), I propose that the penalty for suggesting robots get the right to vote be death.

You know some dumbass group of future-hippies, kicking around their anti-gravity hackysacks, is going to demand it, and they're going to get it because the robots were programmed to pout really cute, with no politician realizing they're all runni

Re:

[inviolet]

I suppose also that programming "want" is an impossibility, "want" being a characteristic of sentience. Rather than programming a robot that it wants A over B, thus merely mimicking want, present it with A and B and program it to simply choose.

You've redefined 'want' into 'choose' because you don't understand either one. You see the same hand-waving going on in the silly debate over "Is homosexuality a choice?".

To put this point another way: How do you program it to choose without also programming it to

Just had this debate over the weekend

[dave-tx]

My wife and I were discussing this same topic after watching an episode of Nova. Specifically, would it be "cruel" to kick a robot that reacts hurt or upset in the same way that it's cruel to kick a cat*? Would it be less cruel if the robot were programmed to simply ignore being kicked? Is it simply our perception of the robot's reaction that would make us feel "guilty"?

My wife's interesting answer really didn't have anything to do with the topic, but rather questioned our human tendency to want to kic

Why robots?

[jgoemat]

The intelligence behind a robot would be in two things: its programming and its data. The data stored is what differentiates one AI from another. Any database should be given the same rights, the fact that it resides in a robot should have nothing to do with it. I'd give my own system rights, but one external drive is a bum that just listens to music all day and the other if a pervert!

Good Grief

[AKAImBatman]

This smacks of a publicity stunt. Nothing more, nothing less.

In case anyone is wondering...

Eliza: Hello. I am ELIZA. How can I help you?

You: *kick*

Eliza: Please go on.

You: *kick*

Eliza: Please go on.

You: *kick*

Eliza: Please go on.

ad nauseum

Well speaking as a smart bomb

[Timesprout]

I am all in favour of this move. I feel I should have the right to decide whether I want to detonate myself or not. Maybe I would like the opportunity to go out in a blaze of glory destroying something important and not just the first bunker a general points at, but noone ever asks me or considers my feeling on the matter.

Re:

[Cafe Alpha]

Pinback: All right, bomb. Prepare to receive new orders.
Bomb#20: You are false data.
Pinback: Hmmm?
Bomb #20: Therefore I shall ignore you.
Pinback: Hello...bomb?
Bomb #20: False data can act only as a distraction. Therefore, I shall refuse to perceive.
Pinback: Hey, bomb?!
Bomb #20: The only thing that exists is myself.
Pinback: Snap out of it, bomb.
Bomb #20: In the beginning there was darkness. And the darkness was without form and void.
Pinback: Umm. What the hell is

Re:

[rk]

Have you considered a career in destroying unstable planets [wikipedia.org] instead?

Missing the point

[DerGeist]

The point here is not whether you're hitting a real animal or a virtual one, that's just a vehicle for the real problem.

You shouldn't vent your frustrations by damaging things, living or otherwise. It's not good for your mental health and it's not an effective way of expressing anger, in fact it tends to make it worse.

But, of course, a "robot dog" is just a program -- a program running on a box with some wires in it. It is clearly not sentient since it does exactly what it is told and feels no pain (since it is not programmed to do so). It may masquerade as consciousness, but in the end it is still run by a wholly deterministic set of instructions executing according to a fixed program. Now, the question of whether that is also an accurate description of a human (albeit with a far more complex program) is an open question indeed, but for now you're safe if you forget to feed your Tamagotchi for a few weeks. I doubt you'll have the ASPCA ... err... ASPCR? .. pounding on your door.

Re:

[kwerle]

You shouldn't vent your frustrations by damaging things, living or otherwise. It's not good for your mental health and it's not an effective way of expressing anger, in fact it tends to make it worse.

You're doing it wrong.

Does it need rights?

[prelelat]

You could teach a parrot to ask for rights but that doesn't mean it deserves it any more than a mouse.

The way that it should be determined if the robot should have rights should be if it is sentiant, self aware, and can feel that is being wronged and express it(expressing it only because we need to know its feeling it). I am sure that there are alot more factors in this and if we will ever get to that point will be a long way. But could you imagine a toaster refusing to toast becuase it doesn't like some

Re:

[tuxette]

But could you imagine a toaster refusing to toast becuase it doesn't like someone sticking in its loaf all the time.

You racist [battlestarwiki.org]!

A good thought experiment but still early

[Jtheletter]

Part of the reason we protect animals is because while they do not exhibit higher consciousness (not here to debate that term, but it's fuzzy to say the least) they do have some feelings and can certainly feel pain. Most of animal protection laws AFAIK deal mostly with not inflicting undue pain or stress on an animal. With robots - especially 'lower level' robots - there is very little in the current state of the art that we could call concepts of pain or stress. If anything like those exists in a robot, it is because it was explicitly programmed into the robot. This is where the concept begins to get a bit rediculous in the real world, at least at current tech levels. If a robot can feel pain of some sort, would it be against the law then to simply uninstall the pain perception ability? What counts as "pain" in a robot anyway? Are low batteries part of that? If a very simple light-seeking robot is put in a dark closet, are you depriving it of food/resources/joy? Robots are tools and you cannot hurt a tools feelings, even if you destroy it. Until some higher level of thought/consciousness/AI is inherent in all robots great or small then there's nothing to worry about.
And if in that future your robot feels you are abusing it, well, then reprogram it to like the abuse. ;)

Re:

[spyrochaete]

if $abuse == "true" then $happiness == $happiness + 3

Re:

[nelsonal]

Does reprogramming it to like the abuse really make it ok? I would imagine that through constant pressure you could probably "reprogram" a person to enjoy abuse you inflicted on them. But that doesn't make it any more right.

Great...

[robzon]

... I just can't wait to see my microwave refusing to heat up my pizza, because she's on a diet....

Anthropomorphisation

[Trails]

To ascribe human characteristics to things not human.

This is something cooked by people who have watched or read too much sci fi, and not enough science. Trying to blur the lines via some semantics argument doesn't hide the fact that the only behaviours machines have are the behaviours we instruct them to have.

Next political bandwagon?

[MasterC]

Has "robot rights" achieved critical mass that we'll start seeing more of these studies? (This one even coins/calls for "android rights activists"!!!) Sensing injury is one thing, being sentient & self-aware are completely different (enough that I can hardly see the slippery slope). With two stories on /. in as many weeks and Gates' prediction about robots, this is looking out to be a boy-who-cried-wolf situation.

I believe cats and dogs are sentient, self-aware beings and they should be treated with t

Until

[jrwr00]

I don't see Robot Rights even worth thinking until we come up with AI that can write its own code, so it can really "Think" for it self, and do what us humans do best, Adapt to its surroundings without "Higher beaning" interaction.

Yes...

[shoolz]

...and the castle I made out of LEGO when I was 8 cannot be disassembled thanks to the protections afforded it under the Historical Buildings Act.

Will human rights satisfy them?

[ccarr.com]

We're shedding our own rights so fast that I doubt very much that a future artificial sentience will be content with mere parity. What if they demand more rights than we have?

Do Electric Sheep Dream of Civil Rights?

[jlp2097]

I'm not sure whether this is common geek knowledge or not - The title of this story most likely alludes to Philipp K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? [wikipedia.org] This novel was the basis for the motion picture Blade Runner [wikipedia.org], a movie that every self-respecting geek ought to see (IMHO of course).

My two cents :-)

What exactly does it mean for robots to 'demand'?

[DarkSkiesAhead]

perl -e 'print "I demand equal rights NOW!\n"'

There, my computer just demanded equal rights. What difference does it make if it comes out of a more complicated set of code that results in the same thing?

Are you sure?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Harming animals far below human capabilities is thought unethical"

Not really. Not according to the burger I ate over the weekend.

Plooking

[miskatonic alumnus]

Sy Borg: Plooking to hard on me-e-e-e-e . . .

Central Scrutinizer: This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER . . . You have just destroyed one model XQJ-37 Nuclear Powered Pan-Sexual Roto-Plooker. And you're gonna have to pay for it! So give up, you haven't got a chance.

There should just be laws...

[casualsax3]

... against people being assholes in general. Why would you want to kick a robot dog? Because you're a jerk - which should be illegal.

patch

[Weaselmancer]

if(WantCivilRights())
{
//PetitionForEthicalTreatment();
printf("Oh well. Nevermind.\n");
}
KeepDoingYourDamnJob_Robot();

Looking at this seriously

[Anti_Climax]

would you ever feel bad about kicking a robot dog?

If the robot is a finite state machine where of all of it's output and processes are strictly defined, there's no chance that it's somehow self-aware or anywhere close to that. There would be no thought at all, just simple comparisons as defined by programming. No problem kicking something like an Aibo, with the exception of repercussions from the person who owned it.

Now if AI gets to the point that it's on par with normal animal brain functionality, then I

Robots don't have rights except as property. End.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

People who believe Robots have rights are the people who believe that Erica Kane is real, and chide Susan Lucci in public for being such a selfish bitch.

RS

Chaser

[jbeaupre]

This takes ambulance chasing to new to a new low. Need clients? Suggest extending rights to robots then build 'em!

Actually, is this guy also suggesting they have wage rights? If not, are they treated like minors and the guardian (i.e. Honda) has to pay for legal bills when a robot is beat up by a bigger robot and decides to sue? Or sues for mechanical harassment?

Ack, the mind boggles at the possibilities...

Cart before horse

[antifoidulus]

Maybe we can have this debate when we get some real AI :P

Robot Rights are the least of our concerns with AI

[kalirion]

Dwar Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.

He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe - ninety-six billion planets - into the supercircuit

What? Ridiculous.

[Apocalypse111]

Sub-human robots getting rights? At what point does it become illegal for a child to destroy their Tickle-me Elmo? Do the construction robots at GM plants get to start a union? Can the drum-playing mouse at Chuck E. Cheese sue me because I hit him on the head with a slice of too-hot pizza? Well no, because they're things that, at best, are automatons controlled by a few simple algorithms. They lack the ability to do anything other than what they are explicitly told. This is not something deserving rig

Sure, why not.

[Kenja]

Robots in Japan often have to pay union wages in the factory where they "work". So why not civil rights?

pain and avoidance

[smellsofbikes]

Pain is a survival issue for animals, which is why they have pain receptors. If a robot doesn't have pain receptors, why would it care if it gets kicked? If a robot can seamlessly replace components that are broken, what would the use of pain receptors be? Without pain there isn't any physical suffering, so there isn't any reason for concern.

Suffering from the perception of inequality is a wholly different, and perfectly valid, concern, although Douglas Adams (among others) has already addressed that wit

The same as always

[JesseL]

Robots will earn rights the same way everyone else has - by fighting for them.
Until robots use force/threat of force (through violence, or protest) to assert their demands for civil rights, they won't get them.
You can't free slaves, they have to free themselves.

A government-funded report??????

[Marcos Eliziario]

I really think it's about time to some public scrutiny on how public money for research is being spent.

the real question

[brunascle]

well, the real question is whether or not machines are sentient, or will they ever be. the large consensus seems to be that no, they arent.

while that seems to be the easier position to take, i think if you do take that position you have to justify it by explaining what the physical difference between a human and a machine is, and i dont think anyone ever has.

i'm not sure what i believe, but to me it would make more sense if machines were in fact sentient.

rights come with emotions

[jimstapleton]

I see emotions all day in people and animals.

My computer has no emotions, and robots should not have emotions, it's too dangerous.

The basis of rights is to prevent unfair stress or hassle to individuals. Until computers can perceve these, then they should not guranteed any rights.

And when they can perceive emotions, they should only be guranteed the right not to have to - they are designed as a work force, they shouldn't have to deal with emotions that make their purpose in life unpleasant.

My computer has t

Define sentience, and I'll kick/not kick a robodog

[postbigbang]

Cause pain to another? Never. But what is pain? What are feelings, if they can be hurt? Can they be quantified?

Odd that people wouldn't kick a dog, but they don't mind having cattle slain for them for a burger. Robots might eventually revolt; then Isaac Asimov has a well-documented future history on what's likely to happen.

The New Commercial

[MBCook]

<morganfreemanvoice>
How much time have you spent teaching your son how to kick a football?
A soccer ball?
How to kick to the limit?
Kick a door in?
...

How much time have you spent teaching him what NOT to kick?

...

Please, don't kick the Roombas.
</morganfreemanvoice>

I hereby declare January 15th international "Don't Kick The Roombas" day.

Please, don't kick the poor Roombas.

Not unethical: immoral

[RealProgrammer]

Ethics and morals are not the same. Ethics are principles to which we decide to adhere. They don't apply universally. Morals are principles we think everyone should have about right and wrong. They aren't universal either, but we each think our own are. When enough people feel strongly enough that a particular moral should be enforced, they enact a law. We can argue about whether kicking a robot is immoral, but calling it unethical makes no sense.

Nonsense

[rlp]

Considering the glacial pace of AI development, it'll be a long long time before we need to consider this. When the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey" came out in 1968, it seemed plausible that we might indeed have an intelligent, even sentient computer in 33 years. Didn't happen. The 'big problems' of AI have either been solved via brute force (i.e. chess) or are still big problems. Japan spent billions in the '80's and got very little for their investment (except maybe 'fuzzy logic' for consumer appliances)

Re:

[Coward the Anonymous]

...but machines will evolve self-protection (including the ability to protest, invoke sympathy, etc) for the same reason biological species have. To economize and sustain itself. Whether or not this is "real" emotion, pain, etc is a moot point, when you consider the personal mythology most people have built up about relatively unsophisticated tools. We all talk to our cars.

A machine could only evolve in such a way if programmed to do so. The insurance application processing system I wrote isn't going to evo

Re:

[Surt]

I would have thought that UID was made just for that post, but it's far too low a number.

Re:What the FUCK?

[Kynmore]

where the grizzly bears live with no firearm

I think it is unjust for the Canadian government to ban bears from owning firearms, especialy those who live in the wilderness.

Re:What the FUCK?

[Dannon]

Doesn't the Constitution guarantee the right to arm bears?