Robots Could Some Day Demand Legal Rights

Karrde712 writes "According to a study by the British government, as reported by the BBC, robots may some day improve to a level of intelligence where they might be able to demand rights, even 'robo-healthcare'." From the article: "The research was commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre. The 246 summary papers, called the Sigma and Delta scans, were complied by futures researchers, Outsights-Ipsos Mori partnership and the US-based Institute for the Future (IFTF) ... The paper which addresses Robo-rights, titled Utopian dream or rise of the machines? examines the developments in artificial intelligence and how this may impact on law and politics." I'd better get started on my RoboAmerican studies degree.

Comments

A moot point, but I hope they do

[KingSkippus]

I'm not so much worried about robots' legal rights in the future as I am my own legal rights. At the rate we're going, there won't be any "legal rights" left, and the point will be moot.

Still, I hope robots do have legal rights. That way, when I get old and feeble and have my consciousness transferred into my new robotic body, I'll still have 'em.

If they have the awareness to ask for legal rights, why shouldn't they have them? Have we learned nothing from Star Trek: The Next Generation?

Re:A moot point, but I hope they do

[amRadioHed]

Like how you should accept people, whether they be black, white, Klingon or even female. What, even lawayers? My word, Jeeves, these chaps know how to push the envelope too far.

Hold on there! He said people. I don't know where you're getting that lawyers business from.

But unless we program them that way...

[aicrules]

Then they won't be able to. And if we program them "open-ended" to discover how to WANT things, we'll lose the #1 reason we have robots...to send them unquestioningly into any job or situation. Otherwise they become superhumans and why would they want us around? Energy source?

first things first

[j1mc]

I say that we worry about this after we get human rights figured out. Thanks!!

Whisky Tango Foxtrot, over

[Scott Lockwood]

Who comes up with this stuff? Someone's been reading a bit too much Asimov. A better question is, under what possible set of circumstances would ANYONE market a product that would want to behave indepently from it's owners wishes? I'm betting that no robot is ever put together in such a way that this will be an issue.

AI not the same as writing a word processor.

[MikeFM]

The problem, I think, is that you can't create a really intelligent machine without giving it the ability to learn. If it can learn to any significant degree then eventually it's likely to be able to develop emotions, desires, protection from damage and destruction, etc. Many AI researchers have this foolish idea that you can make a can opener that can do anything you want but that in the end doesn't really think but my own research has always led me to believe that the easiest way to make a machine more intelligent is to give it emotions and feelings. A computer can tell you the average pigment color of an apple but an intelligence needs to know what a shiny red delectable apple is which is a completely different way of processing data. Sure, you can teach a limited number of rules to a program by sampling human inputs but the machine isn't really going to understand what it means unless it can feel.

Re:Ah, but

[Clever7Devil]

This sparked the real question in my mind.

Where would we draw the line if this happens?

As far as human rights are concerned, we have a well developed demarcation. If you were born of Homo Sapiens parents, you are human with the rights afforded you by the government of your parents' land. In the USA we blur this line between the moment of conception and the age of 21, but after that we are all equal under the eyes of the law. From lumps of flesh in a persistent vegetative state to Stephen Hawking, from quadriplegics to star running backs, from Rosie O'Donnell to Pamela Andersen; all people are granted the same "inalienable rights" according to the law. When it comes to human rights, we make no judgments on the worth of the individual (with the exception of criminals) based on any attribute. Stupid, frail or ugly, everyone's rights are the same. The only requirement for equality is that you are human.

There could be no defined standard for Artificial Intelligence. Are we going to base it on computing power? Are the AMD robots going to be out picking crops? Relegated to the status of second-class citizens? Why is it that the soft(firm)ware has to be able to manipulate the vessel it resides in to have rights (in the form of an android body)? What if the conscious programming resides in a vast super-computer? Need it be able to express itself graphically to be granted rights? If an AI "feels" oppressed, but has no method built into it's programming to express such, does it matter?

Play "The Sims 45", just remember to treat your Sim right or your ass is going to jail. Sims are people too!

This entire concept has no conceivable solution. We can't even decide if a blastocyst or a 14-year-old girl has more right to live, how could we ever be expected to decide the definition of consciousness?