At some point, should advanced AI entities have rights and privileges, or will they always be just machines?

[SpaceShuttleer]

Ever watched "The Measure of a Man" Star Trek: The Next Generation episode? In it, Data, an AI android is ordered by Starfleet to transfer off the Enterprise, he says he doesn't want to, and Starfleet claims he is a machine and his voice doesn't matter. After a trial, Picard helps Data earn his rights. This will never happen, as AI nowadays is more like Majel Barrett's computer voice then Data. The leap between computing millions of calculations a second and imagination and dreaming is one not even Neil Armstrong can make.

 

[kristianna276]

Will Androids reach the level of awareness that mirrors that of humans? We at this stage of technology can not predict how technology will change over time. One thing is fore certain, the right to live in dignity and respect is not a privilege, but is a right no different than human rights. We want to fashion rights that are not granted to all humans due to bigotry and prejudice. We don't want to give robots the right to kill humans, but we kill each other with wanton abandonment. Why send a robot to kill when we as humans do such a good job in killing each other. Why send a robot to do a man's job? We have a natural fear in the things we are unfamiliar with. They don't want to make robots look to human, for we fear our "creations" making us slaves and becoming the dominate species. We as humans have never reconciled Chattel Slavery, but many worry about robots rising up and making us their slaves. Would we, as humans, allow those who we once deemed as property the rights deems only for humans? When we give up the right of owner ship of another, would they gain the rights of living with dignity and respect. We all want the right to live in these we label human rights. Many in this society still believe that Chattel Slavery was good, and the Boarding Schools for Native Children taught the savages to be human. Both were denied their human rights. Will future robots be treated the same?

 

[Ed Stauffer]

With rights comes the obligation to follow laws of the land. Those laws may need to be expanded to protect AI’s from people and vice versa. Planting a virus for example would take on an entirely new implication.

 

[YetAnotherBob]

With rights comes the obligation to follow laws of the land. Those laws may need to be expanded to protect AI’s from people and vice versa. Planting a virus for example would take on an entirely new implication.

This implies that the AI will be capable of obeying the laws. When they can creatively obey, then the law has a moral obligation to protect it's citizens.

Though by that time, I expect that the Ai in question will be a part of that enforcement.

 

[Catastrophe]

If humans are doing the programming, are we to assume that
"trash in - trash out" still applies?

 

[SpaceShuttleer]

Yes lol
Will we program Lt. Cmdr. Data or will be program, what was it... M9? The computer that tries to automate the USS Enterprise and ends up destroying innocent ships?

 

[Wolfshadw]

Yes lol
Will we program Lt. Cmdr. Data or will be program, what was it... M9? The computer that tries to automate the USS Enterprise and ends up destroying innocent ships?

That was the M-5 computer:
Star Trek - The Ultimate Computer

-Wolf sends

 

[SpaceShuttleer]

YES! Thank you! I knew it had 'M' then a number. M11 is the android from Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah the original. I don't know where I got M9 from.

 

[Catastrophe]

"At some point, should advanced AI entities have rights and privileges, or will they always be just machines?"

Yes, they will always be machines.

 

[YetAnotherBob]

If humans are doing the programming, are we to assume that
"trash in - trash out" still applies?

The expression is GIGO that's 'Garbage In Garbage Out'. It's supposed to have been said by some luminary of the early days of computer design, but nobody can agree just who. Not like Murphy's Law where Colonal Ed Murhpy went to his death saying that wasn't what he said, just what he meant. One popular theory is that it's derived from FIFO, a First In First Out memory design.

But no. The current generation of AI, the one that can recognize faces and match them to ID pictures and such are self programmed. They take a general recognition algorithm and allow it to vary it's own rules over many iterations. When it can then recognize one picture they then try it with other pictures until it can pick a random face out of a crowd. It takes literally millions of trials but it does get better over time.

In the end however. nobody actually understands how it works.

What this means is that there are no real human programmers producing the best of current AI. Already the AI programs itself.

It's somewhat like raising children. You think you know how and why they think, but you're never sure. . .

 

[Catastrophe]

Thank you for that useful explanation.

Cat