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Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan

reuters.com

51–56 of 56 posts

Re: Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, sentient means 'having the ability to learn new things' ? Kinda like humans, who are born with certain instincts, but are then able to learn new things or 're-program' themselves. Well, there is a filed called 'machine learning', which helps design robots who will be able to learn. If they are able to learn and exhibit intelligent behavior, then we have to treat them as something more than rocks or hammers. That…

> it can define itself. I think you might have missed the full implication of that part. Certainly, a sentient being can learn new things, but that's a matter of rule-base and memory. No actual intelligence required, IMO. Sentience, to me, goes toward a concept of self. Of being aware that one exists and is responsible for one's own actions. Personally, I fine with having really smart-but-not-sentient hammers. I'd ra…

  No actual intelligence required, IMO.
This is a trick. What does 'actual intelligence' mean? Term 'intelligence' is already vague, so adding 'actual' creates even more confusion.

  Sentience, to me, goes toward a concept of self. Of being aware that one exists and is responsible for one's own actions.
Responsibility is a social construct. In the past, people would put non-human animals on trial, because in those societies other animals had responsibility for their acts. When it comes to awareness, that's a very vague thing and I'm not sure how you would test it without asking the subject (who might be fooling you). Also, why would having an attribute such as 'awareness' be a reason not to enslave someone who has the attribute?

Re: Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan

#52

People are missing the point of robots. Robots have the potential to give us what we've always wanted but could never ethically achieve: slaves. We want capable beings to do our bidding. To serve us, to build for us, to obey us. If we follow some nonsensical robotic social justice, we can lose this. This type of stipulation is also an example of innovation-hindering regulation, and what a surprise, it's coming from t…

  Robots have the potential to give us what we've always wanted but could never ethically achieve: slaves. We want capable beings to do our bidding. To serve us, to build for us, to obey us. If we follow some nonsensical robotic social justice, we can lose this.
Why is it ethical to enslave robots? Why should highly intelligent entities do the work so that some lazy, fat slobs in the human form can parasite off its labor? You are deluding yourself if you think there won't be justice for robots. There was justice for black slaves, for women, for minorities, today we're working on animals and nature. Justice for robots will be achieved, maybe even faster than others, since we can use previous victories and examples and build on top of that.

When it comes to slavery of homo sapiens, it is still happening today in many forms (debt slavery, cheap labor, sex trafficking etc.) plus there is something called a job or a service, which is different from classical slavery in that you're not buying humans, but instead renting them.

You could have said something similar when black slaves were imported from Africa. You could have said that they will be enslaved because they are black and that white race is superior. All the whites would gang up and make a pact to enslave blacks and keep them illiterate (which actually happened).

Re: Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan

#53
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we will have robots doing jail-time in cases like Enron.

Were that the case, robot CEOs would quickly become the norm. Just in case.

That's just what the robots wanted.

Re: Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan

#54

People are missing the point of robots. Robots have the potential to give us what we've always wanted but could never ethically achieve: slaves. We want capable beings to do our bidding. To serve us, to build for us, to obey us. If we follow some nonsensical robotic social justice, we can lose this. This type of stipulation is also an example of innovation-hindering regulation, and what a surprise, it's coming from t…

It's the people who made the robot that are bright. The people who use the robot may or may not be bright...all you can say for sure about them is that they had enough money to buy a robot.

As robots get more and more autonomous, and so are able to take over more jobs and need less human supervision, you reach a point where the owner of the robot is not really contributing any more to society than the people the robots have unemployed.

This will be especially true a generation later when the owners who actually bought the robots are gone and the new owners inherited the robots. The danger there is that we end up with a society where the the robot owners are like medieval lords, the robots are the serfs, and the rest of humanity are beggars, and your place in the world is largely fixed at birth except for a lucky few who are able to marry into the robot owner class.

Re: Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it can define itself. I think you might have missed the full implication of that part. Certainly, a sentient being can learn new things, but that's a matter of rule-base and memory. No actual intelligence required, IMO. Sentience, to me, goes toward a concept of self. Of being aware that one exists and is responsible for one's own actions. Personally, I fine with having really smart-but-not-sentient hammers. I'd ra…

No actual intelligence required, IMO. This is a trick. What does 'actual intelligence' mean? Term 'intelligence' is already vague, so adding 'actual' creates even more confusion. Sentience, to me, goes toward a concept of self. Of being aware that one exists and is responsible for one's own actions. Responsibility is a social construct. In the past, people would put non-human animals on trial, because in those societ…

It may be a gray area, but I, personally, have a moral and ethical bias against slavery and those who condone or enable it.

A hammer cannot be enslaved. A robot that is not sentient cannot be enslaved. I am against making something of that ilk that can be enslaved. Not because I disagree with the act of creation, but because I am against slavery.

It's not necessary to create sentience in our tools. Leave them as tools. It saves time, effort and anguish.

And I won't have to go to war with a slaveholder.

Re: Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we will have robots doing jail-time in cases like Enron.

"Your Honor, I swear the AI told me to do it!"

Your Honor, i swear that this so called tax avoidance where within numeric error ranges. We are all feeble silicon after all..
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