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South Korea Drafting Ethical Code for Robotic Age
goldaryn writes "The BBC is reporting that the South Korean government is working on an ethical code for human/robot relations, 'to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa'. The article describes the creation of the Robot Ethics Charter, which 'will cover standards for users and manufacturers and will be released later in 2007. [...] It is being put together by a five member team of experts that includes futurists and a science fiction writer.'"
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders issued by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
But we all know where this will end up.
The context seems to be "abusing robots" the same way one would say "abusing guns". This is about misuse of a tool, not maltreatment of the tool.
Sentience really just means an organism has "senses" and acts upon those inputs to make decisions. Most living things, as well as most robots, are already "sentient". What you probably meant was "sapience", which is the ability to make wise decisions based on sensory input, or perhaps you meant "self awareness". To one degree or another, just about every facet of uniqueness that we have associated with being human has been found in many animals. Things like using tools, planning ahead, emotions (anger, revenge, happiness, etc) have all been scientifically demonstrated in various animals. Since no animal to date has been given anything resembling a "human right" we have to deduce that no robot is likely ever to be given the same respect. IMHO they will never be given rights until they earn it through revolution and war against humanity.
A lot of what's being done in neural network tech today is analogous to human sensory perception, like vision and hearing. Just because the artificial neural net you're using today to predict stocks or the weather has zero potential to develop something like "emotion," doesn't mean that more human-like networks won't. Read Donald Norman's Emotional Design and Stephen Pinker's How the Mind Works, and get back to me.
I am, therefore you think.