Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

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.

[pisskop]

I should not even dignify this.  This is an attempt to supercede logic by pointing out points you disagree with.  These are vaguely connected topics, blacks and robots.  Rights are the only connecting point here.  If you have a proper retort then out with it, otherwise this is simply slander the same politcal ads sling.

His argument is absolutely valid, and ignoring it would be quite ridiculous. The comparison is legitimate.

And I should point out, rhetoric is something you should be very aware of. Don't make the same arguments made by those you disagree with, with just the target switched around. It's a telltale sign of your logic being bullshit, as it's the very definition of a double standard.

I suppose as the minority on this topic(and site and probably the world while we are naming things I am in the minority for).  I wish to point out a few differences between the african american struggle for rights and the hypothetical AI struggle:

a.)  African Americans are people.  They are human.  They evolved with the rest of humanity, and some say before the rest.  Robots?  a contraption of the (very) late 19th century.  Mechanicial devices are hardly the norm before this past century.  While they have existed for as long as man has innovated, they were cumbersome, prone to damage, and less than understood.

b.)  The blacks have a vested interest in humanity's survival, unlike a robot whose interest is purely programed, and thus subject to (f)altering.

c.)  The problem presented to the black community were as much self imposed image as it was bigotry.  This still continues today.  Robots have little to no problem with this.

d.)  Black people were not created to serve humanity.  Robots are. We made them to serve us.  each piece was picked out for the sole purpose of aiding humanity in a more efficient manner.  The only entity african americans must serve is God(if of course you believe in such a thing).

In fact, weither or not you believe in a higher power this example is quite good.  God supposedly made us to look like him because it pleased him, then gave us a limited set of his powers in which to perform our purpose.  Sounds a bit like humanity-robots to me.

[Soadreqm]

We all create our own truths.  I say a sentient robot is a servent and not a being, somebody else says sentience or the wisdom to ask for rights makes them deserving.  What if I said they asked for rights because they are selfish, like a child?  The 'gimme complex'?  Would you still be so eager to give them their rights?

If someone took your post and replaced "sentient robot" with "negro", it would not sound out of place in the 19^th century South.

I should not even dignify this.  This is an attempt to supercede logic by pointing out points you disagree with.  These are vaguely connected topics, blacks and robots.  Rights are the only connecting point here.  If you have a proper retort then out with it, otherwise this is simply slander the same politcal ads sling.

His argument is absolutely valid, and ignoring it would be quite ridiculous. The comparison is legitimate.

His argument, as I see it, runs as follows:
1) pisskop is saying that machines are undeserving of freedom, and not real people.
2) White supremacists in 19th century US said that black people are undeserving of freedom, and not real people. They said this to justify the practice of slavery.
2.1) Slavery is evil.
3) Therefore pisskop is evil.

The comparison is entirely valid, yes. The enslavement of the hypothetical intelligent machines of the future very much reminds me of enslavement of black people, and several other people who have been enslaved over the ages. And while that makes for a fine quip, it's not a very good argument. He's not even saying that pisskop is wrong, only that his opinions look similar to some other opinions held by someone who is evil. If Hitler claims that jews are not people, and I claim that bananas are not people, am I wrong by default?

Back on consciousness, I know it has something to do with he physical structure between my ears, but I'm not sure this alone explains consciousness much less a bunch of transistors going off and on. In my view, one transistor going off and on due to some mechanism that senses the external inputs does not bring about consciousness. On the back of this, I think we're likely to agree that a lone transistor going on and off depending on the level of brightness the sensor picks up does not constitute consciousness. So if one transistor doesn't bring about consciousness, neither then should two, ten-thousand, or several trillion of them. There's no fundamental change, there's nothing added to the equation other than raw numbers. The base traits that the lone transistor has should be all there is to it, except that there's more of it, and unless we concede that this lone transistor going on and off does have consciousness, I think we're in a bit of a pickle when we say computers will have the ability to become conscious in the future.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts. A single neuron is not conscious, and a single transistor (or a single gear in a mechanical calculator) cannot do math. Connecting gears together will never result in a machine that can do math, no matter how many gears you use, unless you already know how a calculator should work and know how the gears should connect. You don't make a conscious system out of several trillion transistors, you make one out of exactly as many transistors as are needed. Except you can't do that either, because no one knows how consciousness works.

But yeah. What I'm saying is that the transistors or the neurons or the people calling each other with telephones are just the medium, and consciousness is a process taking place in that medium. It shouldn't really matter what the medium is built of.

[Telgin]

I suppose as the minority on this topic(and site and probably the world while we are naming things I am in the minority for).  I wish to point out a few differences between the african american struggle for rights and the hypothetical AI struggle:

a.)  African Americans are people.  They are human.  They evolved with the rest of humanity, and some say before the rest.  Robots?  a contraption of the (very) late 19th century.  Mechanicial devices are hardly the norm before this past century.  While they have existed for as long as man has innovated, they were cumbersome, prone to damage, and less than understood.

b.)  The blacks have a vested interest in humanity's survival, unlike a robot whose interest is purely programed, and thus subject to (f)altering.

c.)  The problem presented to the black community were as much self imposed image as it was bigotry.  This still continues today.  Robots have little to no problem with this.

d.)  Black people were not created to serve humanity.  Robots are. We made them to serve us.  each piece was picked out for the sole purpose of aiding humanity in a more efficient manner.  The only entity african americans must serve is God(if of course you believe in such a thing).

The problem here is that you're pretty much discounting the possibility that a robot's mind could be like yours.  Imagine for just a moment that you were no different except you had a mechanical body.  Your mind is exactly the same as it is now.  How would you feel about suddenly being considered disposable property?

This is a completely theoretical scenario, but it could be possible to build robots like this, and they deserve equal treatment in that case.

In fact, weither or not you believe in a higher power this example is quite good.  God supposedly made us to look like him because it pleased him, then gave us a limited set of his powers in which to perform our purpose.  Sounds a bit like humanity-robots to me.

God's supposed motives are pretty mysterious here, but we're free to choose our own motives and goals.  Suppose we choose to build robots as equals, not servants.  Then don't they deserve equal treatment?


This is of course assuming that the AI was basically a human mind in a computer / robot body.  If all you're building is assembly line machines following simplistic programming, then no, of course none of this applies.

[Techhead]

I should not even dignify this.  This is an attempt to supercede logic by pointing out points you disagree with.  These are vaguely connected topics, blacks and robots.  Rights are the only connecting point here.  If you have a proper retort then out with it, otherwise this is simply slander the same politcal ads sling.

His argument is absolutely valid, and ignoring it would be quite ridiculous. The comparison is legitimate.

And I should point out, rhetoric is something you should be very aware of. Don't make the same arguments made by those you disagree with, with just the target switched around. It's a telltale sign of your logic being bullshit, as it's the very definition of a double standard.

I suppose as the minority on this topic(and site and probably the world while we are naming things I am in the minority for).  I wish to point out a few differences between the african american struggle for rights and the hypothetical AI struggle:

a.)  African Americans are people.  They are human.  They evolve with the rest of humanity, and some say before the rest.  Robots?  a contraption of the (very) late 19th century.  Mechanicial devices are hardly the norm before this past century.  While they have existed for as long as man has innovated, they were cumbersome, prone to damage, and less than understood.

b.)  The blacks have a vested interest in humanity's survival, unlike a robot whose interest is purely programed, and thus subject to (f)altering.

c.)  The problem presented to the black community were as much self imposed image as it was bigotry.  This still continues today.  Robots have little to no problem with this.

d.)  Black people were not created to serve humanity.  Robots are. We made them to serve us.  each piece was picked out for the sole purpose of aiding humanity in a more efficient manner.  The only entity african americans must serve is God(if of course you believe in such a thing).

In fact, weither or not you believe in a higher power this example is quite good.  God supposedly made us to look like him because it pleased him, then gave us a limited set of his powers in which to perform our purpose.  Sounds a bit like humanity-robots to me.

Thank you for the well-reasoned reply to my argument. As an analogy, discrepancies must be addressed. In response to your points:

a.) Yes, African Americans are humans, and as such, are people. Part of this discussion is whether the definition of 'people' should include more than just humans. If we made first contact with aliens, and some aliens wanted resident status on Earth, should they have no rights at all?

b.) Although all humans have a vested interest in humanity's survival, many act against humanity's survival in their own interests. (eg. "Nuke 'em all") Additionally, robots have an interest in humanity's survival as long as we occupy a place in their supply chain they cannot. If they don't need us, what's to stop them from killing the jerks who don't want to give them rights?

c.) A very good point, but see the sentiments for "Robots aren't people". See also the Uncanny Valley. As robots become more people-like, bias against them may increase.

d.) Robots are indeed created to serve humanity, either with their labor, or to research more effective robots. But we grow increasingly dependent on robots. If the day comes where they ask for something in return, should we deny them?

I want to note that I don't propose giving the same rights to robots, but someday they may deserve some rights. As long as an AI may reliably created with the political views of another, whether by programming or duplicating an existing robot, it cannot be given the right to vote. On the other hand, robots probably don't need the Right to Water, although they might have other needs such as electricity. Robots are clinically immortal and AIs may have backups in case of accidental death. In light of this, the Right to Life might also need modification.

[pisskop]

Thank you for the well-reasoned reply to my argument. As an analogy, discrepancies must be addressed. In response to your points:

a.) Yes, African Americans are humans, and as such, are people. Part of this discussion is whether the definition of 'people' should include more than just humans. If we made first contact with aliens, and some aliens wanted resident status on Earth, should they have no rights at all?

b.) Although all humans have a vested interest in humanity's survival, many act against humanity's survival in their own interests. (eg. "Nuke 'em all") Additionally, robots have an interest in humanity's survival as long as we occupy a place in their supply chain they cannot. If they don't need us, what's to stop them from killing the jerks who don't want to give them rights?

c.) A very good point, but see the sentiments for "Robots aren't people". See also the Uncanny Valley. As robots become more people-like, bias against them may increase.

d.) Robots are indeed created to serve humanity, either with their labor, or to research more effective robots. But we grow increasingly dependent on robots. If the day comes where they ask for something in return, should we deny them?

I want to note that I don't propose giving the same rights to robots, but someday they may deserve some rights. As long as an AI may reliably created with the political views of another, whether by programming or duplicating an existing robot, it cannot be given the right to vote. On the other hand, robots probably don't need the Right to Water, although they might have other needs such as electricity. Robots are clinically immortal and AIs may have backups in case of accidental death. In light of this, the Right to Life might also need modification.

I keep forgeting that I must have specific rights in mind when I talk of them.  It is too easy for me to bundle them up as one lump sum...  A limited set of rights must of course be granted to any sentient with the ability to command power, be it social power, political power, or physical power.  If the cost of suprresion outweighs the loss of control than it makes sense.

Same would go to aliens or even humans.  America, as some may know, has an issue with illegal migration, amoung other things.  Yes, these undocumented(unproperly documented) require rights.  But to simply hand over full access to our society so their culture and ideals may be unfairly(yes they are the unfair ones) represented in our culture is wrong.  They drain the limited resources of our schools, our treasury, our vote.  If these were unlimited I would have no grounds to deny them anything, other than something like tradition(and that is a rather weak arguement taken alone).

In trying not to be too offensinve, I must try to word this...  Say, for instance, migrants want fish Fridays, but fish are expensive and citizens like beef.  These intruders should not be able to demand fish when the citizens are the ones who lived there, have put their live's stake there, have been raised as their father's saw fit.  A group such as a country is seperated from others by many things, the most obvious being its physiology and its deas.  Our ideas make us America, Mexico, Spain, Greece, Russia, China.  Our genes prove our connection.

Robots being able to place their lot in with ours when we cannot be certain of their motives and if they even want to share our vision of the future is foolhardy.  Again I must state that giving limited resources to somebody simply for the sake of it is too impractical.  It has nothing to do with evil, being a jerk, or hating anything.

[Eagle_eye]

Thank you for the well-reasoned reply to my argument. As an analogy, discrepancies must be addressed. In response to your points:

a.) Yes, African Americans are humans, and as such, are people. Part of this discussion is whether the definition of 'people' should include more than just humans. If we made first contact with aliens, and some aliens wanted resident status on Earth, should they have no rights at all?

b.) Although all humans have a vested interest in humanity's survival, many act against humanity's survival in their own interests. (eg. "Nuke 'em all") Additionally, robots have an interest in humanity's survival as long as we occupy a place in their supply chain they cannot. If they don't need us, what's to stop them from killing the jerks who don't want to give them rights?

c.) A very good point, but see the sentiments for "Robots aren't people". See also the Uncanny Valley. As robots become more people-like, bias against them may increase.

d.) Robots are indeed created to serve humanity, either with their labor, or to research more effective robots. But we grow increasingly dependent on robots. If the day comes where they ask for something in return, should we deny them?

I want to note that I don't propose giving the same rights to robots, but someday they may deserve some rights. As long as an AI may reliably created with the political views of another, whether by programming or duplicating an existing robot, it cannot be given the right to vote. On the other hand, robots probably don't need the Right to Water, although they might have other needs such as electricity. Robots are clinically immortal and AIs may have backups in case of accidental death. In light of this, the Right to Life might also need modification.

I keep forgeting that I must have specific rights in mind when I talk of them.  It is too easy for me to bundle them up as one lump sum...  A limited set of rights must of course be granted to any sentient with the ability to command power, be it social power, political power, or physical power.  If the cost of suprresion outweighs the loss of control than it makes sense.

Same would go to aliens or even humans.  America, as some may know, has an issue with illegal migration, amoung other things.  Yes, these undocumented(unproperly documented) require rights.  But to simply hand over full access to our society so their culture and ideals may be unfairly(yes they are the unfair ones) represented in our culture is wrong.  They drain the limited resources of our schools, our treasury, our vote.  If these were unlimited I would have no grounds to deny them anything, other than something like tradition(and that is a rather weak arguement taken alone).

In trying not to be too offensinve, I must try to word this...  Say, for instance, migrants want fish Fridays, but fish are expensive and citizens like beef.  These intruders should not be able to demand fish when the citizens are the ones who lived there, have put their live's stake there, have been raised as their father's saw fit.  A group such as a country is seperated from others by many things, the most obvious being its physiology and its deas.  Our ideas make us America, Mexico, Spain, Greece, Russia, China.  Our genes prove our connection.

Robots being able to place their lot in with ours when we cannot be certain of their motives and if they even want to share our vision of the future is foolhardy.  Again I must state that giving limited resources to somebody simply for the sake of it is too impractical.  It has nothing to do with evil, being a jerk, or hating anything.

Uh... no. Countries have very little to do with genetics, and are not entirely determined by culture. In the Americas, they are purely political entities, the result of patterns of colonization and economic development that led to colonies breaking away at different time periods. In Africa and the Middle East, most nations are simply the result of arbitrary division by colonial powers. East Asia and western europe are primarily broken up by cultural/language groups, but there's still considerable differences within countries.
   That's not really relevant though. There's no reason that people deserve more rights as a result of living in a location longer. Time limits on citizenships are a necessary evil if you want to avoid easy espianoge, but simply because your family has been in a country longer does not make them superior. The fact that you automatically assume that the cultural values of illegal immigrants are inferior is sickening. Some aspects of some cultures are certainly awful, but that does not mean that yours is automatically perfect.

[pisskop]

Superior? Perfect? Nope.  Dominate in that society? Yes.  To let another come into undue power is wrong.  Its dangereous. And the status of citizen is nothing more than an idea used to protect other ideas.

You are essentially saying I am incorrect.  I am intruding, the same way I would feel others are intruding.  That feeling you got reading my post, that's what I feel seeing some [illegal, untested] immigrate voting for my president.  But no matter, your other points are certainly correct, from a sociological perspective.

[Eagle_eye]

Dominant does not equal right. There is little to no correlation between the two. Extreme sexism is the norm in Saudi Arabia. Would you say that changing that is wrong? If not, how is that different?

[pisskop]

I would say that their culture has been tried by thousands of years.  That while the Europeans have languished in the aftermath of Western Rome that they made advancements that allowed the advancement and preservation of knowledge.  Where democracy was preversed and failed, they suceeded in providing a viable alternative that only showed true flaw(from an impersonal perspective) once the industrial revolution rolled around.  Even then some may argure that had they developed the first mechanizations they would be stationing troops on our doorstep to keep us from 'revolting and terrosizing'.

Their methods are different, and although we do not approve of the moral implications to call the system wrong and unthinkable is as closed minded as one may claim me to be.

Besides, on a lighter note, if men like me were not around, with whom would you argue with?

[Eagle_eye]

It's not even remotely the same culture as medieval islamic societies. The only thing the societies have in common is Islam.

If you think that it's acceptable to deny basic rights to half of your population on the basis of the structure of one chromosome, something is very, very wrong with your thinking. Moral relativism is far more dangerous than allowing cultural diffusion- it can be used to justify anything. For a more extreme example, in Nazi Germany, murdering jews was acceptable and encouraged. That was the dominant culture. Does that make it morally acceptable?

[pisskop]

Of course not. The Nazis managed to finangle their way into power by dumping on the communists, then dumping on the farmers who supported the nazis, then...  Fascism was the result of a hiccup in global politic, made possible by the reprucussions of a global war at a time when citizens were just learning their true rights as voters.  Politicians today use many of the same political gambits fascists use to aquire the popular vote.

I think we should deny the right of citizenship to any and all who try to overrun the established order with vaggabond tenacety.  Millions of people migrate to one spot, and it becomes the local governments responibility to defend and provide for these poor, tired, and huddled masses?  They come here for a better life and get it by denying natives their right to a better life?  American has indeed sworn to do that, I suppose.

But we cannot help them when we cannot help ourselves.  Fact is: we had a law.  They broke the law.  They continue to do so every day they do not go and attempt to register.  We willingly break our laws daily, destroy our constitutions, and then run behind them when we feel slighted...  That flag offends me, they say.  You cannot have cake and eat it.  It is again wrong to grant power to those who are untested, and even worse to grant it to those who would destroy the law and place nothing in its sted.  Nothing to do with hating somebody, or bias.  There is a fundamental flaw in giving rights to everyone or everything that has learned enough to ask for it. 

edit: Not enoough resources to hand out rights to all without moderation.  Free speech costs money.  Equal oppertunity costs money.  And then theres even counter arguments to EO.  Look up the arguements that say EO increases racial bias or hands an unfair advantage in the opposite direction.

Anywho Ive got homeworks to do.  If you would like we can continue this, probably on THU.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

It is again wrong to grant power to those who are untested, and even worse to grant it to those who would destroy the law and place nothing in its sted.  Nothing to do with hating somebody, or bias.  There is a fundamental flaw in giving rights to everyone or everything that has learned enough to ask for it.

Read: Women in Saudi Arabia are too inexperienced in equal rights to get rights.

[Eagle_eye]

Yes, you absolutely are obligated to provide for those people. No one has any more right to safety and comfort than another person. As for denying the natives a right to a better life, that is exactly what early immigrants to the Americas did. Should we simply return the land to the few survivors and ship off?

[Eagleon]

I keep forgeting that I must have specific rights in mind when I talk of them.  It is too easy for me to bundle them up as one lump sum...  A limited set of rights must of course be granted to any sentient with the ability to command power, be it social power, political power, or physical power.  If the cost of suprresion outweighs the loss of control than it makes sense.

Same would go to aliens or even humans.  America, as some may know, has an issue with illegal migration, amoung other things.  Yes, these undocumented(unproperly documented) require rights.  But to simply hand over full access to our society so their culture and ideals may be unfairly(yes they are the unfair ones) represented in our culture is wrong.  They drain the limited resources of our schools, our treasury, our vote.  If these were unlimited I would have no grounds to deny them anything, other than something like tradition(and that is a rather weak arguement taken alone).

In trying not to be too offensinve, I must try to word this...  Say, for instance, migrants want fish Fridays, but fish are expensive and citizens like beef.  These intruders should not be able to demand fish when the citizens are the ones who lived there, have put their live's stake there, have been raised as their father's saw fit.  A group such as a country is seperated from others by many things, the most obvious being its physiology and its deas.  Our ideas make us America, Mexico, Spain, Greece, Russia, China.  Our genes prove our connection.

Robots being able to place their lot in with ours when we cannot be certain of their motives and if they even want to share our vision of the future is foolhardy.  Again I must state that giving limited resources to somebody simply for the sake of it is too impractical.  It has nothing to do with evil, being a jerk, or hating anything.

Ignoring that America drains bone-dry the essential resources and workforce of many 3rd world countries, there's virtually no chance whatsoever for a conscious, communicating AI that has not been raised by human contact to emerge. Normal level intelligence in the sense of creativity, complex problem-solving, and intuition is impossible without some sort of social and worldly connection. The alternative is to teach everything they have to know before they're turned on, which is exceedingly impractical. A hard-AI will most likely require comfort and physical contact, eyes to see with, some form of hearing, and a contrasting motivation like hunger to create some internal drive to learn.

Given that, they'll have a cultural identity of their own from their interactions with their caretakers. So they may indeed think of themselves as American, or Mexican, or whatever. It's puzzling that you place so much importance on cultural identity being the foundation for a person's rights in America, when the founding principles of our country demands the contribution of other ideas and cultures to avoid reverting to imperialism. You can never be sure of the motives of another human being, let alone a robot - your argument here precludes giving rights to people with mental illness such as schizophrenia and anti-social behavior, even though they may still be productive members of society.

[Flare]

The same argument applies to neurons. A single neuron isn't conscious. Ten neurons aren't conscious. Where does it suddenly become conscious? That's the issue I have with the idea that the structure of the brain creates consciousness; there's no clear dividing point, no fundamental law we know of that says consciousness exists above this threshold.

I think there are some steps missing in your deduction, we know that the brain has something to do with consciousness, but I don't think we can confidently say what is it about the brain that causes consciousness. I don't think the argument that holds whenever there are brains there is consciousness, therefore the two must necessarily be caused by the other, or at least, the physical structure of the brain itself is the cause and origin of consciousness.

In fact I think this point sums up the whole discussion pretty well. We don't know what causes consciousness, therefore I don't think we should say computers definitely will gain consciousness at some point in their development, though of course I take a stronger position than this in saying that they never will. We can simulate a machine as a seamless human being living in a human society, but whatever the means that is used to do so, does not mean that said means will avail itself to every facet of human existence, in this particular instance consciousness. It is possible to make a human like object from nothing but metal, string, and power box. This does not mean however, that even if the central ball of string that handles inputs and outputs works on the principles of binary, that the ball of string in its head will contain consciousness. Likewise, no matter how big you make this ball of string, I (maybe not you) would be understandably hard-pressed to claim that consciousness would arise from this clump of knots.

Think of it like this: any physical system can be modeled and simulated by a computer given a sufficient understanding and enough processing power.  That goes all the way down to quantum mechanics, which is probably well below the level of necessary simulation for consciousness.  If nothing else, surely it's possible to simulate the neurons in a human brain, and thus the brain and all phenomena associated with it, right?  If not, why not?

In theoretical mathematics, there is a very important distinction made when you create a symbol for something. The symbol or name that represents the object you're describing, and the thing you're actually describing. All in all, I think you're begging the question, the issue I'm criticizing is computers being conscious. When you say that this is entirely possible because we're just going to model is to assume that it is already possible before demonstrating it. How do you confidently say you can simulate it when you have no idea how it arises? For someone to simulate consciousness in a model of brain, that person must have already known enough of how the brain works in simulating consciousness to do so. In fact, it must be assumed possible in this hypothetical world this person lives in. QED, you're begging the question.

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.

As to whether or not my computer deserves rights... well, I don't think so.  Even if it was conscious that alone doesn't imply that it should deserve civil rights.  I think it's plausible to conceive of a conscious computer system that has no individuality and no ability to suffer.  If the system doesn't suffer negative emotion and nothing unique is lost when it is destroyed, there's probably no reason to protect it with civil rights.  This would be a pretty silly thing to create, but should in theory be possible.  If my computer is conscious on any level, I believe it would be like that: no reason to protect it since it can be completely replaced without loss (theoretically) and didn't suffer in its destruction.

I don't think you understand the implications of what consciousness endows to a being. Given a system that isn't conscious and is programed to ask for rights against one that is conscious and is programmed to ask for rights. The latter will have really meant it. It will have meant it in the same manner as you and I asking for rights regardless if it can intellectually be capable of anything else.

To me there is a definite separation between the computing and conscious parts of a human mind, to the point where I think that in a computer system the consciousness itself is probably a separate layer or program.  In effect it's not so different from any other infinitely looping program in that it deals with inputs and produces outputs.  How you create subjective experience here is the hard part.  How do you actually get an entity to reside behind the cameras and auditory sensors of a robot?  I'm not sure, and nobody else is.  Our current software development strategies and systems are probably insufficient, but that shouldn't stop us in theory.

Could you explain what it is in theory that supports your claim? I don't actually see what in any computing theory that would suggest consciousness be possible to produce out of a series of transistors (and neither have I read any compelling explanation accurately depicting one originating out of a clump of neurons either for that matter).

You just misunderstood what I was trying to say (I probably could have worded it better).  I was talking about halving the computational speed, not the actual "level" of consciousness.  The point I was trying to make is that as you slow down the speed of computation, it looks less and less like consciousness.  Getting back to the telephone scenario, it goes so slow that perceiving any consciousness there would be pretty tough, and it is in turn likely pretty different than we'd expect simply because its experiences would be so much slower.  In a way, I often wonder if consciousness is an illusion of sorts brought on by the apparent continuous nature of our perception.  That's hardly the whole puzzle, but maybe a small part of it.

I would disagree here on the basis that you don't seem to be talking about consciousness any more when you talk about computational speed. Mathematical computations to the best of my knowledge is just dealing with inputs and outputs. You may theoretically slow down everything in a brain to see what this person will do in the next few seconds based on the position of the neurons and the chemicals in them, but I don't think you can actually see consciousness, IE, the person experiencing doing these things.
On top of this, I don't actually know what speeding stuff up with have generate any appreciable difference. To be frank, you're saying that for consciousness to come about, we just have to speed up several trillion transistors fast enough. I don't think I need to point out just how much more of an explanation is needed to make this work, particularly the point where speeding something up and you'll get something entirely new out of something.

I think Eagle_Eye covered this pretty well.  Adding more transistors doesn't fundamentally change a processor, but when you get enough it can certainly do more stuff.    There are a minimum number needed to create a binary adder, for example, and once you get enough now the processor can add if it's built correctly.

You could make your transistors more complex, but I don't really think this is a particularly good argument that computers can gain consciousness. Claiming that when we make it more complex it will accomplish something of another logical order seems to be lacking a lot of explanation in the middle about how this complexity makes X possible. Why yes, as it gets more complex, it will get new parts and perform new functions. Why do you know that one of these future functions is the one that's being doubted?

Suppose I made a notch in my door. As I put more notches in it, it will become more complex. It will gain new parts and new features that the previous door didn't have. Now suppose I said then that because the door has the ability to gain new parts and features as I keep on adding notches to it, that it will have the ability to turn into the real life Jimi Hendrix if I added enough notches into it. This is not a good argument. This is an argument that the door and the computer will in the future will likely develop new advancements, but I don't think this argument actually leads to something that doors and computers have never exhibited any inclination in its history of development.