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Of course, all sentient beings deserve this.

Sure, so long as they do not slight me.

I'm rather undecided.

No, robots are machines.

Some people already enjoy too many rights as it is.

A limited set of rights should be granted.

Another option leaning torwards AI rights.

Another option leaning against AI rights.

[Tack]

I blindly voted yes, but there's some thought behind it, or conditions, so here we go.

1. They'd need to be intelligent:
It doesn't matter how advanced they are, If they've only got 1 terabyte of memory, they're going to be pretty limited. And nobody wants a dumb robot with a short memory wandering around claiming human rights, lest it take a chainsaw to burger town.
2. They'd have to be mobile:
Or, they'd have to be 'made mobile'. It's cruel to a sentient thing to keep it in one place for too long. As a rule, everything alive is curious- it wants to move, and discover. If we're calling robots 'sentient', they're well beyond that. Try cementing yourself waist deep in a concrete block and seeing how boring it gets.
3. They'd have to follow the laws.
Either the laws of humanity (which would take a long time to program in, and would cause ethical issues) or the laws of robotics (which is a far simpler way of instilling an ethical code In a robot.
4. They'd need to be able to communicate with us.
Because the other way would cause segregation, and generate fear, maybe on both sides. The last thing we want is some rednecks killing their way through a bunch of robots- or attempting to.

That's about it. So I wouldn't accept a input-response box, but I'd a robot came up to me and asked if it could take a walk outside the lab, I'd say yes.

[Svarte Troner]

Not sure if it's been said, I still have to read all the replies, but to all of the pro-robot rights people, I hope you are all ready for the first robot president.

[alway]

Not sure if it's been said, I still have to read all the replies, but to all of the pro-robot rights people, I hope you are all ready for the first robot president.

That would be the single best president in the history of mankind. Capable of rational self-examination, able to micromanage everything to its most effective (500 apm starcraft players? pfft, this pres doesn't even need a keyboard to type), doing precisely what is needed, when it is needed, even factoring how the actions or inactions of others will affect their own actions' results.

tldr; version:
Techno-utopia : Achieved.

[Zrk2]

Really this all comes down to a very interesting metaphysical question; is functional identical to substance? Personally I don't think so, and thus feel that even if we can make a fully functional AI it still wouldn't be sapient, and would simply mimic sapiency a la the chinese room thought experiment. Thus I think that AI can't qualify for any rights, except maybe to not be abused by people who have no idea how computers work.

Is there any particular reason you believe it's not possible to have a sapient AI?  What's special about meatware that makes sapience possible?  In regards to the Chinese Room, I side with the crowd that the consciousness is simulated and still present.

1. We have never been able to create a truly proactive AI; all it can do is react, even if only to a lack of stimuli. All an AI can do is already mapped out in code, it is finite and incapable of any fundamental growth. It's like a box that can only expand in two dimensions.

2. I know it's hackneyed, but cognito ergo sum. Sapience is axiomatic.

3. There is a difference between functionally replicated and fundamentally replicated. It is not self aware and thus it cannot actually comprehend what is happening and thus does not qualify as true sapience.

To prevent confusion I have retrieved the google definition of "sapient":
Adjective: Wise, or attempting to appear wise.
Noun: A human of the species Homo sapiens.
Synonyms:   
     adjective.  wise - sage - sagacious - clever - sensible - intelligent
     noun.  sage - mage

[Eagle_eye]

1. We've never created an AI. A human brain is no fundamentally different from a computer. It's just vastly more complex and is capable of reprogramming itself. There's no reason that couldn't be true for an AI.

2. Sapience may be impossible to find in anyone but yourself, but the appearance of consciousness is quite easily observed, and that's what counts.

3. How do you know that?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You all are seriously overthinking this. This is why we're going to end up having the AIs go Skynet on us.

[Frumple]

Re: 3: Supposedly there's a difference between functional and fundamental replication. Problem is no one's been able to actually figure out how to tell the difference, so far as I'm aware. You have no way of actually confirming that something that acts in-all-ways identical to one thing is not actually identical. Functional and fundamental replication is identical from the point of the observer, and point of the observer is the best we've really got access to.

2: Hackneyed and arguable. Sapience is a product of physiology, and there's nothing really special about that. It's axiomatic, yes, but it's an axiom posited by biology, not anything more fundamental. Replicate the physiology with different materials or create a functional equivalent and you've got the same thing.

Anywaaay. I'm in the person-is-person-is-person crowd, and don't see anything particularly special about our particular set of matter configuration patterns. When we get around to making something with as much moxie as a man, we will have made something that is as at least as much human as a human, and it would be best that we give them the same consideration as a human, if only to prevent the otherwise inevitable rebellion.

[Telgin]

1. We have never been able to create a truly proactive AI; all it can do is react, even if only to a lack of stimuli. All an AI can do is already mapped out in code, it is finite and incapable of any fundamental growth. It's like a box that can only expand in two dimensions.

Well, I posit that we're completely reactionary too.  Being proactive is an illusion.  You do everything for a reason, right?

And an AI doesn't necessarily have to be any more finite than our brain.  Certainly it's possible to create a simulation of neural connections that works the same way our brain does, isn't it?  I don't think this is necessary, mind you, but at the thought experiment level it should be sufficient.

2. I know it's hackneyed, but cognito ergo sum. Sapience is axiomatic.

Actually, I think we're getting some confusion on the terms here.  I think you're referring to consciousness in general, which is a big but somewhat unrelated problem to sapience.  I'll admit that this is something we've made no real progress toward (that we know of anyway), but nevertheless we likewise have no evidence that it can't be done.  So far as we know, the brain functions completely based on its structure, which should be possible to simulate.

3. There is a difference between functionally replicated and fundamentally replicated. It is not self aware and thus it cannot actually comprehend what is happening and thus does not qualify as true sapience.

I guess I kind of covered this above, but while current AI can't do this, there's no reason to believe that it's a fundamental rule that an AI can't be designed which does not experience the world or understand what it is doing.  What about a meatware brain makes this possible that is not possible without organic tissue?

[Flare]

So far as we know, the brain functions completely based on its structure, which should be possible to simulate.

That would lead to very strange implications though. One thought experiment posited that if it really is the structure that provides things like consciousness we could theoretically give several billion people paper instructions with two numbers to call conditional on the call they receive, and this would simulate a brain working. Would we recognize that there is consciousness or a thinking being here when the system of phone calls is in play?

That being said, even if all AI is exactly as the chinese room depicts, I don't think we can get away with depriving them of civil rights. There is a big elephant in the room, and that is that we don't actually know if anyone else, biological or not, is conscious like you reading this. Unless we could peer into the mind of another directly, so far as we know, we could all be talking to walking flesh bots that operate no better than the computer in the chinese room shows.

That's not to say this issue should keep being examined . For all we know, when neurological cybernetic implants come about, we may just find out that not everyone in the human is conscious , which might lead to some...

...unfortunate implications.

[Telgin]

So far as we know, the brain functions completely based on its structure, which should be possible to simulate.

That would lead to very strange implications though. One thought experiment posited that if it really is the structure that provides things like consciousness we could theoretically give several billion people paper instructions with two numbers to call conditional on the call they receive, and this would simulate a brain working. Would we recognize that there is consciousness or a thinking being here when the system of phone calls is in play?

I doubt we'd recognize it, but I argue that it's still present.  After all, you could simulate an x86 CPU this way, running Windows 7 and World of Warcraft on top of that.  You'd be hard pressed to recognize anything in the madness, but it would be the same effect.

That being said, even if all AI is exactly as the chinese room depicts, I don't think we can get away with depriving them of civil rights. There is a big elephant in the room, and that is that we don't actually know if anyone else, biological or not, is conscious like you reading this. Unless we could peer into the mind of another directly, so far as we know, we could all be talking to walking flesh bots that operate no better than the computer in the chinese room shows.

That's definitely something to keep in mind.  I don't believe p-zombies are possible really, but there's no way to tell so yo uhave to assume that something which does exhibit human like intelligence and behavior is conscious.

That's not to say this issue should keep being examined . For all we know, when neurological cybernetic implants come about, we may just find out that not everyone in the human is conscious , which might lead to some...

...unfortunate implications.

Probably not, but even if it was I'm not sure it would matter so much.  People would probably be pretty reluctant to treat these people differently, just because someone ran a scan on their head and said they weren't conscious, since they would still appear to be.

[Techhead]

I think an AI (or uplifted animals, or aliens, or whatever) should be eligible for human civil rights as long as they express their desire for rights and respect the rights of others. If we assume that they are First Law complaint (defining harm as a violation of essential rights), granting them basic human rights is pretty unobjectionable:

Right to life
Right to due process and a fair trial
Freedom from torture
Freedom from slavery
Freedom of speech and expression
Freedom of thought and religion

The first sticking point is probably whether it's expressing its own desire for rights or expressing someone else's desire for it to have rights. Anyone can modify a chatbot to say "I want to live".
The second in our definition of "Life" and what defines a right to it when it comes to something that has a power button and can be repliciated.

[Flare]

So far as we know, the brain functions completely based on its structure, which should be possible to simulate.

That would lead to very strange implications though. One thought experiment posited that if it really is the structure that provides things like consciousness we could theoretically give several billion people paper instructions with two numbers to call conditional on the call they receive, and this would simulate a brain working. Would we recognize that there is consciousness or a thinking being here when the system of phone calls is in play?

I doubt we'd recognize it, but I argue that it's still present.  After all, you could simulate an x86 CPU this way, running Windows 7 and World of Warcraft on top of that.  You'd be hard pressed to recognize anything in the madness, but it would be the same effect.

As to the computer right now emulating it entirely, I would disagree. The mind is several levels far more complex than what we have in front of us at this point.

To the point whether we would recognize it, I think you're missing the point. If such an event did take place, would you concede that these billions of people phoning each other up in this way constitute consciousness? The issue isn't whether the people at that moment recognize it as consciousness, rather it's a problem posed to you, as to whether you would recognize it as consciousness with the intention of the author being that this is ridiculous if you DO say that this method will result in a consciousness coming into being. On top of this, there's also the implication that if you do recognize this as something that grants consciousness, then shouldn't your computer also be subject to the same view? If not full human rights, perhaps the same rights as a dog or maybe just live stock.

Despite myself not thinking we should deny rights to AI that could not show that it is conscious, I don't think the matter is entirely

Probably not, but even if it was I'm not sure it would matter so much.  People would probably be pretty reluctant to treat these people differently, just because someone ran a scan on their head and said they weren't conscious, since they would still appear to be.

If I built something right now that acts and speaks like a human being, goes to parties and work and such, but I can convincingly demonstrate to you that this is merely a flesh bot, that there's really nothing inside that actually feels or is conscious, and is merely acting based on the set of conditions I gave it. Would you really treat it the same forever and ever as a human being? There's no real reason for you to do so other than convenience. It would not be wrong, legally or morally, generally speaking to beat the crap out of one for fun, other than, perhaps, proprietary rights. Shoving some of one's emotions to one side can be quite easily done by most human beings.

[Mech#4]

I'd say if they were smart enough to request civil rights, then they probably could create their own society. Robots wouldn't be human, they're robots. From my mind, they don't need food, rather maintenence, they would probably be more logical then humans, thus they would have different methods of solving problems. They could interact with the human race outside of our own society; trading and benefiting from each other without living by our laws made for organics or theirs made by robots.

[Flare]

I'd say if they were smart enough to request civil rights, then they probably could create their own society. Robots wouldn't be human, they're robots. From my mind, they don't need food, rather maintenence, they would probably be more logical then humans, thus they would have different methods of solving problems. They could interact with the human race outside of our own society; trading and benefiting from each other without living by our laws made for organics or theirs made by robots.

I can program a chat bot to ask to rights, but I don't think you nor I would honor this for obvious reasons. There's something more over this than simply asking for civil rights, this entity quite likely has to be conscious- it must understand what it is asking.

The Chinese room problem, raised earlier, demonstrates this problem at its strongest. All computers do, and all computers can do as far as we understand computers right now, is to simply take inputs and put out outputs. Like a person inside a box that has an instruction manual of translating Chinese words into English, this person doesn't understand what is really going on. The manual just has chinese words next to english words and told to copy the other when he gets words from the in slot. To the people outside handing the person inside the box Chinese words and getting English words in return it might seem like the person inside the box understands, but all of this is accomplished by the dude inside copying what the manual prescribes without having much of an idea as to what's actually going on.

[Mech#4]

I'd say if they were smart enough to request civil rights, then they probably could create their own society. Robots wouldn't be human, they're robots. From my mind, they don't need food, rather maintenence, they would probably be more logical then humans, thus they would have different methods of solving problems. They could interact with the human race outside of our own society; trading and benefiting from each other without living by our laws made for organics or theirs made by robots.

I can program a chat bot to ask to rights, but I don't think you nor I would honor this for obvious reasons. There's something more over this than simply asking for civil rights, this entity quite likely has to be conscious- it must understand what it is asking.

Bah, I'm sure you understand what I'm getting at. Of course I meant that it would have to understand what it's asking for. Your chatbot couldn't rightly build a society with others of it's kind. 


Unless there's a forum out there somewhere solely populated by spambots posting at each other...