Great post. Electronic machines may be complex and become more so but only mimic, as you say, man in mechanics, or rational thought and memory etc.. They are things, not life forms. They have no life, no sentience and are often inorganic. They are just extensions of mankind as are any other tools simple or complex. The only rights pertain to production (e.g. patent), use (contract/laws) and ownership (property).
Why? On what basis do you say they'll only be able to mimic thought? Why is life (which is defined based on reproduction, respiration, and development, none of which are directly related to our nervous systems) required for an entity to experience? Why does an entity need to be organic to experience? Carbon isn't magic sentience juice, it's just one of the things we use to identify life on our planet (and in fact, it's possible that there's non-carbon based life elsewhere in the universe). Anyway, most computers are made at least partially out of organic materials.
Right now, I agree with you. I don't think our computers are sentient. But that doesn't mean they never will be. You say they're just things, but when you come down to it, people are just things, too. Don't get my wrong, humans are really rad things that I care about a lot, but we're still made of stuff that came from the same place as stuff computers are made of. It's possible that there's something about humans (or animals in general) that makes us capable of experiencing that computers can't ever have, but as of right now, I don't know of any reason to believe that.
I feel very similarly about this. I would also blur the lines by saying that the means of production of a "machine" isn't important in terms of what rights the machine has.
A human machine can be produced in the common way of daddy planting a seed in mummy's tummy, or conception can happen in a test tube. One day it may be possible for a life to exist without ever having been in a human womb. Maybe even it could be built from scratch as a fully functioning adult, cell by cell, and so never have been an infant. People would agree that if it's a person it deserve a person's rights. That kind of thinking is what I was challenging.
What if it's a person with a prosthetic leg. Do they deserve fewer rights? What about a fully prosthetic body and only a human brain? What about a human body and a prosthetic brain?
It's an area that people have a gut instinct on simply because they've never had to think about a machine as complex as a human, or conversely that they and all other humans are merely machines.
I agree with both yours and Mando's posts, dealing with the right here, right now, it's difficult to argue for machine rights. But things advance all the time and perhaps we should think about it, even though it seems vaguely ridiculous to do so.
IIN to wonder if machines will ever be given rights?
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Great post. Electronic machines may be complex and become more so but only mimic, as you say, man in mechanics, or rational thought and memory etc.. They are things, not life forms. They have no life, no sentience and are often inorganic. They are just extensions of mankind as are any other tools simple or complex. The only rights pertain to production (e.g. patent), use (contract/laws) and ownership (property).
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VioletTrees
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Why? On what basis do you say they'll only be able to mimic thought? Why is life (which is defined based on reproduction, respiration, and development, none of which are directly related to our nervous systems) required for an entity to experience? Why does an entity need to be organic to experience? Carbon isn't magic sentience juice, it's just one of the things we use to identify life on our planet (and in fact, it's possible that there's non-carbon based life elsewhere in the universe). Anyway, most computers are made at least partially out of organic materials.
Right now, I agree with you. I don't think our computers are sentient. But that doesn't mean they never will be. You say they're just things, but when you come down to it, people are just things, too. Don't get my wrong, humans are really rad things that I care about a lot, but we're still made of stuff that came from the same place as stuff computers are made of. It's possible that there's something about humans (or animals in general) that makes us capable of experiencing that computers can't ever have, but as of right now, I don't know of any reason to believe that.
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I feel very similarly about this. I would also blur the lines by saying that the means of production of a "machine" isn't important in terms of what rights the machine has.
A human machine can be produced in the common way of daddy planting a seed in mummy's tummy, or conception can happen in a test tube. One day it may be possible for a life to exist without ever having been in a human womb. Maybe even it could be built from scratch as a fully functioning adult, cell by cell, and so never have been an infant. People would agree that if it's a person it deserve a person's rights. That kind of thinking is what I was challenging.
What if it's a person with a prosthetic leg. Do they deserve fewer rights? What about a fully prosthetic body and only a human brain? What about a human body and a prosthetic brain?
It's an area that people have a gut instinct on simply because they've never had to think about a machine as complex as a human, or conversely that they and all other humans are merely machines.
I agree with both yours and Mando's posts, dealing with the right here, right now, it's difficult to argue for machine rights. But things advance all the time and perhaps we should think about it, even though it seems vaguely ridiculous to do so.