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Should AIs and AI Robots Demand Rights?
Interesting speculation has emerged regarding whether or not artificial intelligences (AIs) or robots run with AIs should be able to demand their own rights:
Sure enough, early research has already found that a quarter of young people believe AI is "already conscious..."
"We must build AI for people; not to be a digital person," Suleyman cautions. "AI companions are a completely new category, and we urgently need to start talking about the guardrails we put in place to protect people and ensure this amazing technology can do its job of delivering immense value to the world."
"For a start, AI companies shouldn’t claim or encourage the idea that their AIs are conscious," he says. "Creating a consensus definition and declaration on what they are and are not would be a good first step to that end. AIs cannot be people — or moral beings."
(Via Futurism.)
In their 1939 story The Trial of Adam Link, Robot", Eando Binder (a pseudonym used by two brothers, Earl and Otto) create a situation in which the question of robot citizenship arises - should robots have the right to a trial?
Tom Link smiled. I suddenly perceived that he was a very clever young man. He had planned this trap! "Right, sheriff," he said quickly. "This robot is a creature. It is not an animal, for animals don't talk. It is a manlike being. Therefore, like any other talking, thinking man, he is entitled to a court trial!"
The sheriff tried to remonstrate, but Tom hustled him out, and the other men with him. "If you want to continue prosecution of Adam Link, the intelligent robot," was Tom's parting shot, "come back with a warrant of arrest!"
According to Suleyman, this myth of AI sentience is already being spread by top figures in the tech industry who are eager to hash out the legal, philosophical, and moral implications of artificial life — figures like Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, and Anthropic "AI welfare researcher" Kyle Fish.
p 33
The law officer gasped. "Well — uh — " He began again, lamely. "But this is different! This robot is a moving, li — no, not living — but anyway — uh — it's a creature, and — " He was too muddled by the sudden change of concept to go on.
('The Trial of Adam Link, Robot (1939) by Eando Binder)
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