Saudi Arabia Becomes First Nation To Grant Citizenship To Humanoid Robot (foxbusiness.com) 90
Saudi Arabia became the first country in the world to offer citizenship to a humanoid robot, but Brad Keywell, CEO of Uptake, a predictive analytics technology company, told FOX Business on Thursday artificial intelligence (AI) will not replace humans anytime soon. From a report: "Humans are made super-human through the intelligence that can be derived from these sensors and there is a clear argument that's made about the possibility that there will be no humans, there'd be just autonomous everything... but this is something that has historically involved humans and I just don't see that changing," he told Maria Bartiromo on "Mornings with Maria." Uptake's products are used in a collection of industries ranging from energy to aviation, helping "people and machines work better and faster," according to the company website.
Ok (Score:5, Funny)
But only because it's a Sunni robot and not a Shi'ite one.
Atheist, Christian or Apostate robots need not apply, ditto for female ones without being accompanied by their developer.
Jewish ones will be thrown into the sea, so they'd better be waterproof.
PS. Is it allowed to charge or get an oil change in the day during Ramadan for a robot citizen?
Re:Ok (Score:5, Informative)
But only because it's a Sunni robot and not a Shi'ite one.
TFA doesn't say. In fact, it only mentions Saudi Arabia in the first half of the first sentence, and then abruptly veers into a shameless promotion of "Uptake" with plenty of vacuous statements by its CEO, and never mentions Saudi Arabia again.
Here is a link [independent.co.uk] with some actual information. Here is another [businessinsider.com].
The robot's name is Sophia. Since she is female, presumably she won't be allowed to drive. But she is pictured without a veil.
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But only because it's a Sunni robot
So its solar powered?
Male Robot (Score:5, Funny)
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Even worst, it's an unveiled fembot which probably has other extra rights compared to its human counterpart.
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If it's a Fembot, it has machine guns in its tits.
This will be the next terrorist weapon!
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Can it get a driver's license? Does it need to wear a hibab?
Funny: captcha was "adultery"
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"Can it get a driver's license? "
Sure, any woman in Saudi Arabia can.
You're a bit behind, not only on the news.
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Not yet. that starts next year.
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The legal reality is more difficult, women cannot go out without a male guardian, they can't even decided to turn left or right without the male guardian's approval.
And that's much harder to fix than to allow them a driving licence...
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The next logical step is likely for the government to allow them to vote, not to mention also provide the AI they need to "make an intelligent choice".
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The Saudis only recently started letting humans vote, and still not on anything important.
Re: Male Robot (Score:2)
Are suggesting this was a workaround to allow for autonomous cars?
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"Historically?" (Score:2)
"Historically?" What a moron.
This is silly (Score:1)
Our "AI" isn't even at the intelligence of a clever mouse yet.
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"Our "AI" isn't even at the intelligence of a clever mouse yet."
I'd pay for a stupid mouse one.
Women? Foreign workers? (Score:4, Insightful)
The subject says it. Perhaps those should get citizenship first? Or proper treatment and rights?
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Slaves don't get to become citizens.
Both article and summary are crap (Score:5, Informative)
A quick search resulted in this article from Bloomberg. [bloomberg.com] Which at least explains what they're talking about, though still not in very great detail.
As expected it's a PR stunt, relating to the "robot city" they're planning to build.
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well he does have to start somewhere so he thought of the children first so next he needs to light up the major adult hospital and then do the rest of the infrastructure and work on homes and such as needed/available (heck they should be rebuilding houses with Solar in mind).
Slashdot CHALLENGE
design and fabricate an air drop-able mini solar power station (say GMA pallet sized)
Must be as low cost as possible and minimum power a single family home (bonus for larger cap)
Must tolerate without exploding damage d
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Conversion to Democracy! (Score:2, Insightful)
Saudi Arabia can finally be a democracy! Where all the robots vote for the current monarch.
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http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/e8... [quickmeme.com]
The meaning of it? (Score:2)
In a country with an absolutist rule, what does "citizenship" grant you? If the prize is so little, even robots are entitled to it.
So I can build a voter? (Score:2)
"Citizen"... for some value of "citizen." I don't think they've thought this through.
So it can vote for King . . . (Score:2)
Or at least it will be able to vote for King when the rest of the citizens can as well.
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("Well I didn't vote for you!")
In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the king was elected...
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In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the king was elected...
That is certainly an improvement on wielding supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.
Will be allowed to drive? (Score:1)
What a preposterous notion (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you believe that we'll one day have strong AI that is intelligent in every way that we think of ourselves as being intelligent, we can all agree that we're not there yet. We're nowhere close, in fact.
So if you've just conferred human rights to an object, how long until we see people protesting with signs that read "Software updates are murder"? After all, you'd effectively be destroying the very essence of one of your citizens if you replace the thing that makes them intelligent—their software—with something else. And if they do it voluntarily, do we call it suicide? Are we allowed to reuse their robotic chassis if they don't sign off as an organ donor? Can we sell their body parts, or is that illegal? Are minor software updates okay, in the same way that we're okay with prosthetics? At what point does this a ship of Theseus [wikipedia.org] situation, where it's still them, even though nothing is still the same?
Perhaps a more pragmatic question: can it vote? If so, and if updating their software isn't disallowed, what's to stop me from making millions of them and programming them all to vote according to my wishes?
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Sadly this is to be expected in an age where "corporations are people." It has nothing to do with actual AI, but rather some business advantage.
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Re:What a preposterous notion (Score:5, Funny)
Software updates murdered my old iPhone, so I can understand this.
Now it has to pay taxes (Score:2)
So... AI can vote now? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it a new trick how to program new citizens to ensure that totalitarian dynasty will never be ousted?
You know... it is so easy to clone new citizens by just one key press in case the real ones decide to vote for somebody else...
What a worthless article (Score:3)
I don't give a shit about Brad Keywell. I want to learn about this robot. They don't say a thing about it. Not who developed it, what it does. What kind of salary it is going to be paid, how taxes are going to be collected on it, it's work hours, overtime, maintenance insurance, or any of the other things that go along with being a fully-fledged citizen.
Does anyone have a better source for this?
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Just looking at it I'd say it's going to be some kind of customer service kiosk, with probably just a mount post from the waist down. Hook it up to a company directory and a speech recognition / synthesis routine and have a novelty in the company lobby.
Walking/navigation and power aren't solved issues for humanoid robots operating in areas with heavy human traffic... and you don't bother with a humanoid robot unless you want to interact with humans or use the same equipment that was made for them (the latt
Stupid, pointless, publicity stunt (Score:1)
Joke is on them (Score:1)
All robots are female
Saudia Aribia? (Score:2)
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Come on... Where was Japan. I figured they already given robots citizen ship.... 2nd Generation immigrants, No. Robots, yes.
In the USA they almost voted for a robot for president. It narrowly lost and they got a moron instead.
Well, "subject" would be more accurate. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an absolute monarchy after all, so it's really more a claim of authority over than a grant of rights to.
The only constitutional limitation of the Saudi monarchy is compliance with Sharia, the Quran and Sunnah. Insofar as these documents do not grant rights to machines of any sort, granting "citizenship" to a robot is effectively meaningless.
Women finally get to drive cars (Score:3)
I miss Futurama. (Score:2)
Fry: So let me get this straight. This planet is completely uninhabited?
Bender: No, it's inhabited by robots.
Fry: Oh, kinda like how a warehouse is inhabited by boxes?
Huh? (Score:3)
The scary issue with AI (Score:1)
At some point it will be able to replicate the intelgence of a flea, then a frog, then a dog, then a 3 year old baby, then a 10 year old, then a high school student, then a college grad, then a PhD. Eventually it will be Einstein like in intelligence.
Some scary things:
1) Eventually it will evolve to be able to create new AIs on it's own. And this will probably occur at an exponential rate.
2) The scary thing is what happens when it is 10x smarter than Einstien. Or 100x?
I read interesting theories that an
Smells like a publicity stunt (Score:2)
TFA has no detail at all explaining the headline. There's not even any stated connection between the headline and the interviewee Brad Keywell and Saudi Arabian law. AFAICT, the purpose of the piece is to promote him and his company with a clickbait headline.
I think I failed the Turing intelligence test ... (Score:2)
... by clicking on this article.