On behalf of Canada, the answer's simple: our government has been hijacked by Bush-era conservatives. (And I do mean "hijacked": see this and this.) A lot of people here are vehemently upset about new petroleum fuel extraction developments.

This has all been a miscommunication, I think. I was not saying robots are incapable of feeling a sense of accomplishment, only that if it is easy for them, they will feel less of one because there has been less overcome. Admittedly that was not what was written; I assume people would focus on the analogy (helicopter pilot vs. mountain climber, not helicopter vs. mountain climber) and understand what was intended. The end result is that a person who does something, even in a society when it is no longer necessary, can still feel satisfaction at their achievement.

This has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

a) in the context of the quotation, artificial beings who were accepted as having genuine emotions existed.

b) my statement was that "humans can still feel accomplishment even if robots make their work unnecessary." The only implementation of any relevance was the human one.

c) an accomplishment is defined by the obstacles you overcome to achieve it, so it does not need to be special. You, as a human, faced the challenge with more obstacles than a purpose-built machine.

That all being said, I'm detecting some really profound anti-AI chauvinism here. Subjectivity is about how evidence from your environment influences your thoughts and decisions; if a mind can process well-formed hypotheses and beliefs, then it can judge itself to have accomplished something. There are two problems with your last paragraph:

a) How do you, personally, know that everyone around you isn't lying to your face about what they believe? Claiming AI would be non-genuine because you can't "detect" anything more is no different. There would be debugging procedures both equivalent to, and much more powerful than, the fMRI we currently use to detect (what we think are) genuine emotions in humans.

b) It would be impossible to build an AI that behaved fully human without either copying a human template or understanding how it worked. If the human template is copied, then the new model has no appreciable difference; if the AI built from scratch, we'd know for certain how experiences would affect its decision-making.

"Feeling a sense of accomplishment" is the subjective experience of having performed something understood to be difficult for the individual who performed the task. It is not an implementation-specific phenomenon.

That does not diminish the personal sense of accomplishment of the endeavour. There are plenty of inadvisable and dangerous recreational activities—parkour, skydiving, and deep-sea diving to name but a handful. Humans have undertaken hazardous physical challenges for sport since the dawn of time, and no amount of fretting over it will curtail that.

Challenges are defined by the limitations and risks you face them with. Whether or not you approve of people confronting particular ones because they are extremely dangerous really doesn't contribute anything at all to this conversation or affect the validity of the analogy.

But it's not meant to be; it's recreational. Two forms of recreation are compared. That is an entirely sensible metaphor that none of the other respondents had trouble grasping. Plenty of people, entirely free of personality defects, go rock climbing simply for the challenge! This is in no way unusual. You are not precluded from climbing a mountain (again, recreationally) just because someone else flew a helicopter to the top.

In fact, Everest has been climbed by a helicopter (and it was unbelievably difficult and dangerous) and some really impressive music has been composed by what is far from a strong AI (even if it is relatively formulaic).

But neither of these two things have anything to do with my actual point.

Even in a hypothetical world where excellence itself is obviated by technology, or some race of superior beings, or even by mere changing tastes, the challenge itself still exists. Every time someone faces an obstacle it is a reflection on their own upbringing and personal history, and that is equally if not more important than the actual magnitude of (artistic) accomplishment. Even if—no, when—all you say about human standards of beauty fades, and there is nothing left remotely humanlike to judge subjective aesthetics, the achievements of those who lived and worked and created will not be diminished. Neither the sands of time nor the mountainous shoulders of giants yet unborn having any bearing upon this.

In the original phrasing it was more of a fancy-schmancy science fiction hovercraft, the sort that required no training to use. Without a doubt the design and construction is more impressive, but that's not really the operator's concern.

Everest was actually my original example, but I changed it because, although (as everyone else has now pointed out) while it's been done, you're right, it's incredibly dangerous and possibly even harder to do than climbing by hand. If this does not satisfy you, substitute some sort of high-atmosphere, highly manoeuvrable balloon or space craft. The general point remains: respect (especially in art) comes not just from what you do, but how you do it.

Getting technical, I'm pretty sure the slap-drone would've intervened. We're on an Orbital here, after all. You can't even decapitate yourself within 30 feet of a terminal without help being sent!

Given that this was a metaphor about writing a symphony, I am truly strained to understand how that observation is relevant. Assume the mountain climbing was recreational.

Feel a sense of accomplishment. To paraphrase Iain Banks: a robot composing a symphony is like flying a helicopter to the top of a mountain; it presents its own unique challenges, but is not nearly as impressive as climbing it with ropes and pegs.

Queen Elizabeth I owned a wristwatch. They were a popular piece of women's fashion amongst aristocrats in the 16th and 17th centuries. People have been wearing portable watches of one form or another almost since the invention of the mainspring, although they were very lousy timepieces. Even the Romans had pocket-sundials. All of this was possible because, unlike early computers and mobile phones, they weren't hideous bricks; early pendant-watches could be styled in a wide variety of manners, including highly decorated bird-shapes and egg-shapes. Wearable computing still really faces the same challenges—when miniaturization and materials have evolved to the point that sufficient processing can be added to a normal-looking garment or accessory, there will be no problem.