>Questioning an idea doesn't automatically amount to advocating its "opposite" (in quotes because that would in turn reflect a further underlying supposition that the issue being discussed is binary in the first place, where it usually isn't).I'm not suggesting everybody take their beliefs about robots and replace them with some other opposite belief. I'm saying the appropriate belief might be none at all.
Fair. Maybe just say that next time. Cuts out a couple of levels of implications that others may not follow.
>What do robots deserve? I dunno, who cares, what's for dinner? They don't make meaningful decisions, aren't beings, and therefore aren't morally accountable. Ironically that ends up being a pretty good argument that we should just smash them all, because they're amoral, some of them dangerously so, but mostly it just means they're just things, and don't "deserve" anything.
Either they are amoral or they aren't. It's a binary state. Modifying it by tacking on "dangerously" is just trying to score emotional points. (The irony.)
Furthermore, we're increasingly seeing VERY significant decisions being made by digital entities, be they algorithms or robots. What news you see, the order of search results, what route you travel on the way home are ALL meaningful decisions.
>They aren't governed by morality internally so why should we apply it externally?
Because they are a by-product of our actions as moral beings. They are an extension of us in the world in that they would not exist if we had not found a need for them to exist. They also do at some level have a fundamental morality. Do they complete their task in the manner in which they were designed? If they do, they are good, if they don't, or do in an unintended way they are bad. The fact of the matter is that the childrens' behavior should elicit disgust or the recognition that the state of affairs was not right. Having to program a robot to run to an adult to avoid being "bullied" makes a sad statement about the lack of respect we find it reasonable to instill in our children for artifical systems put in place.
There is also the message being sent, as pointed out by another poster, that the system is interacting according to our more positive moral values. If it can't even do that without anti-bullying programming, there is an issue, and it isn't with the machine.
The story of Frankenstein's monster isn't just horrible because of the monster's eventual actions but also because the monster's creator, as well as the populace could not see in that "fleshy bucket of bolts" something that deserved some level of respect by virtue of its creation. I don't hold that flesh or pain is necessary to make an object worthy of respect. Only a purpose. Whether or not that purpose justifies acting maliciously towards it is entirely dependent on how it is being employed, and what the consequences and outcomes of its deployment are.
I'll not go on further except to say I vehemently disagree with your viewpoint, and implore you to think some more on the matter.