Ban? No. Regulation... Maybe. At first glance, who gives a flying fcuk about robots, right? Slippery slopes when these robots become ai+genetic material and humans start considering given them rights as 2/3rds human being or something like that. Furthermore as transhumanist agenda progresses and we become more machine than flesh, a line will have to drawn on when an entity is human vs machine... But on another level is it about the subject or the object? Is cruelty only towards other humans or 'living' things? Are there behaviors that should not be tolerated at all? Is it different if it is a lab created clone in the form of a child? As property would it be OK? Personally, I think it's an interesting debate to have not for what it is but for what it could become.

lol