© Unknown
We should all be pretty well aware at this point that the robot apocalypse (or "robopocalypse," if you will) is on its way. Our most gifted storytellers have been warning us about it for years, from the legend of the
golem to James Cameron's
Skynet. In their latest volley against an unsuspecting human race, our metallic overlords-to-be have conscripted MIT researcher Kate Darling to draft a new research paper that suggests humans grant rights to robots. According to Darling, robots don't need rights on par with humans (yet), but due to the emotional connections humans can create with them, we may find it beneficial to ascribe them similar rights to our pets.
All right, calling Darling a pawn of the robots may be going too far, considering that her 18-page paper lays out a digestible, cogent argument for robot rights sooner rather than later. "The typical debate surrounding 'rights for robots' assumes a futuristic world of fully autonomous and highly sophisticated androids that are nearly indistinguishable from humans," she writes. "While technological development may someday lead to such a
Blade Runner-esque scenario, the future relevant legal issues are currently shrouded by unforeseeable factors." Darling describes the robots of today, from Sony's robotic dogs, to
Paro the seal (who has seen proven success in geriatric therapeutics), and even Roomba vacuum cleaners, explaining that each one can generate a companionate, emotional reaction in humans, especially in small children. This interaction, she argues, is not the same as an interaction with nonresponsive toys. "While a child is aware of the projection onto an inanimate toy and can engage or not engage in it at will, a robot that demands attention by playing off of our natural responses may cause a subconscious engagement that is less voluntary."
Children are not the only subjects who anthropomorphize robots, either. Darling describes a situation in which a battle-hardened army colonel could not bear to watch a mine-detecting robot modeled after a stick insect get leg after leg blown off during a trial run. "[The] colonel just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg. This test, he charged, was inhumane," Darling quotes from a 2007 article by Joel Garreau. Even gamers should be familiar with granting human qualities to totally inanimate objects simply because they mimic a small human quality. "In the video game
Portal ... which requires the player to incinerate the companion cube that has accompanied them throughout the game, some players will opt to sacrifice themselves rather than the object, forfeiting their victory."
The obvious criticism of Darling's paper is that simple companion robots, unlike animals, have no desires, feelings, or capacities for pain and pleasure. However, she reminds readers that "our desire to protect animals from harm may not necessarily be based on their inherent attributes, but rather on the projection of ourselves onto these animals." Furthermore, a discussion of robot rights in the present might make a similar discussion if - or when - robots develop sentience somewhere down the line. Just remember that protecting Paro the seal today might make it that much harder to fight back against the Terminator a few years from now.
Source: Social Science Research Network via Computerworld
If a robot were really a machine, it would not need "rights" as we understand them. "Rights" are connected with living entities.
But their plan has been known for a long time now: Use machines that look like people (or animals) as tools to totally subvert (or subjugate) and control any target human population.
They are playing on our confusions concerning animated objects: They all look alive to us.
Here is the true situation as I understand it:
1) Spiritual beings got bored so they created "toys" to play with, then eventually interiorized into the game, and "became" their toys.
2) The lowest-level toys (commonly called "life forms" today) are the plants. Next level up are the animals. They have mobility. And the highest level toy is the humanoid body.
3) The humanoid body cannot survive long without a higher-level being present. (How some beings retained "high-level" status while others did not is still a matter of esoteric interpretation.)
4) The relationship between a higher-level being and its body is essentially the same relationship that exists between a robot controller and his robot. The body is, for all intents and purposes, a biological robot, and a living animal, both at the same time.
This has been a major confusion for most people for most of history.
Many times in the past we have submitted to robot-run slave societies due partly to our confusion on these points.
Practically, the line is drawn at the level of the higher being. Such a being should have full rights of "ownership and control" to his own body (or bodies) so long as his actions do not violate that same right for other beings. This is what gives you the legal right to kill someone if they point a gun at you.
The modern soldier has essentially already been robotized. "They" would like to produce a totally controllable soldier, but haven't perfected this yet. You better believe they are working on it! It's probably one of their very top priority projects.
So eventually we will face armies of human-like robots that all act like psychopaths. I am supposed to grant them "rights?" Forget it!