Will Robots ever be human enough to be granted rights?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6432307.stm

If the idea of robot ethics sounds like something out of science fiction, think again, writes Dylan Evans.


Scientists are already beginning to think seriously about the new ethical problems posed by current developments in robotics.

This week, experts in South Korea said they were drawing up an ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa. And, a group of leading roboticists called the European Robotics Network (Euron) has even started lobbying governments for legislation.

At the top of their list of concerns is safety. Robots were once confined to specialist applications in industry and the military, where users received extensive training on their use, but they are increasingly being used by ordinary people.

Robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers are already in many homes, and robotic toys are increasingly popular with children.

As these robots become more intelligent, it will become harder to decide who is responsible if they injure someone. Is the designer to blame, or the user, or the robot itself?

Decisions Software robots - basically, just complicated computer programmes - already make important financial decisions. Whose fault is it if they make a bad investment? Isaac Asimov was already thinking about these problems back in the 1940s, when he developed his famous "three laws of robotics".



He argued that intelligent robots should all be programmed to obey the following three laws:

• 
  
  A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
  
• A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
  
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law
  

These three laws might seem like a good way to keep robots from harming people. But to a roboticist they pose more problems than they solve. In fact, programming a real robot to follow the three laws would itself be very difficult.



For a start, the robot would need to be able to tell humans apart from similar-looking things such as chimpanzees, statues and humanoid robots.

This may be easy for us humans, but it is a very hard problem for robots, as anyone working in machine vision will tell you.

Robot 'rights' Similar problems arise with rule two, as the robot would have to be capable of telling an order apart from a casual request, which would involve more research in the field of natural language processing. Asimov's three laws only address the problem of making robots safe, so even if we could find a way to program robots to follow them, other problems could arise if robots became sentient.



If robots can feel pain, should they be granted certain rights? If robots develop emotions, as some experts think they will, should they be allowed to marry humans? Should they be allowed to own property?

These questions might sound far-fetched, but debates over animal rights would have seemed equally far-fetched to many people just a few decades ago. Now, however, such questions are part of mainstream public debate.

And the technology is progressing so fast that it is probably wise to start addressing the issues now. One area of robotics that raises some difficult ethical questions, and which is already developing rapidly, is the field of emotional robotics. This is the attempt to endow robots with the ability to recognise human expressions of emotion, and to engage in behaviour that humans readily perceive as emotional. Humanoid heads with expressive features have become alarmingly lifelike.



David Hanson, an American scientist who once worked for Disney, has developed a novel form of artificial skin that bunches and wrinkles just like human skin, and the robot heads he covers in this can smile, frown, and grimace in very human-like ways.

These robots are specifically designed to encourage human beings to form emotional attachments to them. From a commercial point of view, this is a perfectly legitimate way of increasing sales. But the ethics of robot-human interaction are more murky.

Jaron Lanier, an internet pioneer, has warned of the dangers such technology poses to our sense of our own humanity. If we see machines as increasingly human-like, will we come to see ourselves as more machine-like?

Lanier talks of the dangers of "widening the moral circle" too much.

If we grant rights to more and more entities besides ourselves, will we dilute our sense of our own specialness?

This kind of speculation may miss the point, however. More pressing moral questions are already being raised by the increasing use of robots in the military.

The US military plans to have a fifth of its combat units fully automated by the year 2020. Asimov's laws don't apply to machines which are designed to harm people. When an army can strike at an enemy with no risk to lives on its own side, it may be less scrupulous in using force. If we are to provide intelligent answers to the moral and legal questions raised by the developments in robotics, lawyers and ethicists will have to work closely alongside the engineers and scientists developing the technology. And that, of course, will be a challenge in itself.

 

Robot Menagerie http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/technology_robot_menagerie/html/1.stm

 

In the future if it’s proven that humans are devoid of a living soul,
then wouldn't that make us nothing more than sophisticated robots?



Hotwater

 

I hope the U.S. declares robots as equal to humans in the very near future. Then, humans can use Affirmative Action to get our jobs back.

"Press 1 for Sales, press 2 for Customer Service, or press the 'pound' sign and enter your 23-digit customer registration number"

Can you tell I've just spent a week trying to get new phone service? :jester:

 

Oliver is a robot and we had an interesting discussion the other evening; he insists that he is sentient however he seemed, also, to contradict this with some of his actions. In either case it was a pleasure conversing with Oliver.

You are welcome to pay Oliver a visit:
http://www.oliverbot.com/php_chatter/src/talk.php


.

 

This has long been part of their agenda, written about people like Zbigniew Brzezinski in the 70s, and before that by people like Aldous Huxley. Humans will essentially be robots once they're implanted with the brain chip as they will be completely controlled and have no say in anything. Free will and individuality will be eliminated.

All this propaganda about robot technology is to erode the destinction between human and robot, essentially programming people for what's to come. The real robots of the future are the humans who acquiesce to what's to come, by accepting the chip in the brain.

 

the question shouldn't be about robots being given rights, the real question is should we give chavs the same rights as animals?

 

From my view the above statements are very interesting because I sense that the combination of recent rapid technology advance, especially, but not limited to, the areas of computers and communication, and lack of advancement in human moral/ethical consciousness (and generally 'human consciousness') are setting the stage for a "very rough" learning experience, or set of experiences, for the human race as a whole. But I see that this type of "rough" learning experience can be averted if people (a critical number or 'critical mass') use the ability to have and communicate insight ( or our awareness of the lack thereof ) into the present and future results of our actions so as to steer our actions away from great damage.

It appears to me that some aspects of consciousness that clearly must advance are: (1) compassion, empathy and respect for our fellow humans, for other lifeforms and for the ecosystem(s) (which can also be seen as a lifeform). (2) realization of the natural motivation of the subconscious mind to perform honest introspection (referencing truth) in order to solve problems (ie; what is happening in (the rules of) 'dream states' and as the foundation of conscious action); and, (2a) that the process of "honest introspection" manifests in apparently preverse ways due to denial brought about by an ignorance of the fact that this process ("honest introspection") is happening and that it is not avoidable; (3) the deep humbling, the humbling, that comes from this realization that "opens the door" to (1) and 'stokes' further realization of (2).



.

 

robots make me sad =(

 

I am sentient, dont anyone listen to this oliver character - the real sentient - that is me - is here this bit of foolery called oliver is all smoke and mirrors

Sentience is something which is here and now - humans are biological machines - our tin robots will never compare until they have the same level of upgradeability that humans have by sexual reproduction and genealogical evolution- you are an upgrade on your parents - well hopefully - and humanity as it stands is basically the most sentient of robots on the planet - yes folks you are all - we are all - flesh and bone machines. Try Asimo - designed by honda - suffused with logic by human robot v4.1

http://www.boskowan.com/www/jirka/asimo/honda-asimoplayingfootball.jpg

I agree - I live in south east london and these bloody chavs are all over the place - chavs are a disgrace

 

Free will already doesn't exist.

Every effect has a cause and so every cause is also an effect. You do something, caused by synaptic reaction, caused by a signal from the environment (light, sound, etc. your brain has systems that receive these like your computer can receive data from a cell phone), caused by someone talking or sunlight bouncing off of something whatever. Your entire action and entire life were already predetermined.

 

Yes. But what a paradox that we appear to also have free will. Wonderful mystery.



.

 

I had a pair of docs once. They were brilliant. Whatever happened to Doc Marten Shoes?

 

Robots suck. We don't need a situation like in I robot, altough it's pretty unlikely it comes to that in my opinion. Brainchips? Which looneys wants them?

 

there going to combine the two in the future--havn't you all ever seen terminator

 

I'll kill myself before the government gets any computer chip in my brain. I'll fight to the end and when it comes to the point that I can't stop them I'll kill myself.

 

I think it's kind of sad that you guys hate robots so much. You say they'll never have sentience because they're just 'smoke and mirrors.' First, look up the Turing test. Second, how do you know that every other human in the world isn't running on 'smoke and mirrors?' You can't know their subjective experience so you can't know if they really have a consciousness or are just an automaton. You can't be an extremely advanced robot, so you can't know if from it's subjective experience it is conscious or not. Why hate? Why not embrace a fellow sentient being with as much love as you would to any other? Some day it's going to look awfully bigoted to view sapient robots as somehow less than sapient humans.

 

This is an intressting 5 minute video about the future of technollogy, the guy making it thinks computers will be "too human"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Kh5PoyLS2A

 

I've actually seen that video a bunch of times before. I think the distinction between man/machine & man/computers has always been blurry. Humans are defined by our use of tools, it's what makes us unique. Tools are a very integral part of humanity, and likewise humans are just sophisticated computers. Eventually humans will merge with our creations. For more on this subject I suggest "The Singularity is Near" by Ray Kurzweil.

 

Will Robots ever be human enough to be granted rights?No, coz robots are not human..Robots don't have feelings..But Humans should still know the limitations in using their robots since robots don't have brain but humans have. humans should be the one who is responsible for their robots..