Robot Rights

November 3, 2003 | Source: Tech Central Station

“Robots are people, too! Or at least they will be, someday.” That’s the rallying cry of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots, and it’s beginning to become a genuine issue.

Questions:

  • Would it be moral to impose Asimov’s laws of robotics on an intelligence that we created. Wouldn’t we be creating slaves? And, if so, wouldn’t that be bad?
  • Are we obliged to create machines that are capable of suffering? Or to refrain from programming them in ways that make them happy slaves, unable to suffer no matter how much they are mistreated by humans?
  • Do we have an obligation to allow machine intelligences to evolve into human-like minds?