Robots to Have Human Rights NOT Merely Fiction
Authors of Robo-rights: Utopian Dream or Rise of the Machines stated: “If artificial intelligence is achieved and widely deployed (or if they can reproduce and improve themselves) calls may be made for human rights to be extended to robots“.
Are you kidding me? Did I fall asleep and just wake up in the next decade? Or did I just walk off the set from i, Robot? I don’t make this up as I go along folks; Prison Planet reports there is actually a debate going on over this. Picture by Toycozy.
Owen Holland, a computer scientist and expert on machine consciousness at Essex University said “It’s really premature I think to discuss robot rights“.
Noel Sharkey, a roboticist at the University of Sheffield agreed, but he said there were more immediate concerns. “The idea of machine consciousness and rights is … a bit of a fairy tale as far as I’m concerned. My concern is about public safety. I think we need proper, informed, public debate about where we are going with robotics at the moment. We need to tell the public about what’s going on in robotics and ask them what they want.”
Last year the South Korean military unveiled a robot border guard built by Samsung that can shoot targets up to 500 meters away. He said these could be programmed with a shoot-to-kill policy. The US, meanwhile, is on the way to achieving its goal of replacing one third of its ground vehicles with autonomous robots.
“It would be great if all the military were robots and they could fight each other, but that’s not going to be the case,” he said. “My biggest concern there is that it goes against the body bag politics. If you don’t have body bags coming home, you can start a war much more easily.”
Once robots become more common in warfare, he predicted they would be used more widely in policing and surveillance; so far there has been very little serious and informed public debate on these issues.
Offenders could, he suggested, be monitored at home by a guard robot and the streets could be patrolled by mobile robot CCTV. They could also be used to deal with riots and other civil disturbances, he predicted. “Imagine the miners’ strike with robots armed with water cannon.”
By providing companionship and basic care and health monitoring for older people, robo-carers could look after the increasing numbers of elderly people. And he predicted that vibrating sex-robots would be available soon for those bored with blow-up dolls.
I’m speechless — vibrating sex-robots to be coming soon to a Love Boutique near you? You heard it here first!
RETROBOTICUS: Meet Your Robot Overlords
RISE: The Amazing Climbing Robot — ROBORAMA.info
i, Robot
Scene from i, Robot of the car chase and the robots attacking.
i, Robot Trailer
Trailer for the movie I, Robot. “Somehow I told you so just doesn’t quite say it.�
They Might Be Giants — Am I Awake — Robot Dance
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I did a post a couple days ago on the iRobot. For now it will only be a surveillance drone, but could be developed into further things.
http://portrayed.org/2007/04/24/new-irobot-model/
Hi Deborah
Love your site. I’ve been fascinated by robots ever since I was a child and I’m glad to see this page on them over here. One of my dreams as a non-violent activist is to see them replacing human beings on the battlefield one day.
Portrayed: Thanks for the link, it’s interesting. All the best with getting back into blogging
Badthing: Thank you! Well it looks like your dreams are coming true, with the goals of replacing one third of ground vehicles with autonomous robots.
I’m all for it if it will save human lives!
Lots of interesting things on your blog. Well presented
Thank you Peter!
I keep wondering if any of these engineers has ever watched television, seen a movie, or read a book that has the theme -”Man creates his own replacement.” C’mon hasn’t everyone at least picked up the plot of “The Terminator” or “Battlestar Galactica”? I like robots – dumb ones that can’t ponder over existence. Great post. Feel free to visit my blog at High Strangeness Altoona and my new blog at the Raven’s Barrow.
Thanks for visiting the dogs and me. This is the first I’ve heard of Robot rights, but I’m sure it won’t be the last. I guess I could laugh if the prospects of artificial intelligence and wars without body bags weren’t so chilling.
Very informative blog. I will definitely be back.
Thanks Jan, glad you stopped by. I’ve bookmarked your site to come back to visit too!
Robot rights? An interesting idea. But I can’t imagine it’ll ever really happen. But then, I couldn’t imagine a lot of the things that have taken place in the last decade.
That’s scary! I’m afraid of robots.
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