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<title><![CDATA[Comments for entry "Robot Rights" at Dilbert.com Blog]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/884]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Regular thoughts and updates from Dilbert.com]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from shagbark]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1992552]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Posts like this make me sad, Scott, because they show that you're smart enough that you could contribute to important debates like this, if you paid attention to what other people have written on the subject over the past sixty years, instead of always trying to come up with everything starting starting from zero by yourself.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[SunPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from mijj]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1985643]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[i wonder if drones are asking if they have the right to kill humans.  It's the only way humans will ever have a chance. Ie. if killing machines become aware and morality emerges as a side effect of learning to interact with their environment. Because there's no morality in the way dumb killing machines are controlled by humans.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[SatAMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from botogol]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1984387]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Scott - watch this intriguing, and award winning short film on this very topic 
a female robot gains sef consciousness and pleads fo survival...

http://vimeo.com/38303600

]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from roesslerj]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1984161]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[In terms of avoiding the Terminator scenario ... Asimov's laws are regarded to be insufficient among researchers. Actually, any reasonably intelligent entity (I actually do not think it needs to be a robot--think SkyNet) will be able to circumvent all rules that we try to impose on it. This is its own field of research, called &quot;friendly AI&quot; (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_artificial_intelligence).]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from callcopse]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1984155]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Wow, Phantom, that's the most long-winded and philosophical Godwin I've ever seen on a comments thread.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from et1975]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1984047]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Everyone should read this: 
http://singularity.org/research/]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[WedPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Phantom II]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983582]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[The question is (how unusual for you) an unfair one. You can't kill what is not alive. The question assumes something that is untrue, to wit: a robot is alive. It is not.  Therefore you can't kill it.

You can't kill, for example, a computer. Why? Because it's not alive. 'Kill' means 'to deprive of life.' Ergo, one cannot kill what is not alive.  Just because you use the word 'kill' in relation to disassembling a piece of machinery doesn't make it a real question.

Your question makes no more sense than me asking, &quot;Who has the right to disassemble Scott Adams?&quot; The question is nonsensical in that Scott Adams is alive. Thus 'disassembling' him would actually be killing him, and thus the question is not only irrelevant, it is purposely misleading.

During the time leading up to WWII, there was only one country in Europe who made vivisection illegal: Nazi Germany. They did this not out of any desire to protect fluffy, but because they wanted to blur the lines between animals and humans.  If animals equaled humans, then whatever you were allowed to do to animals you could also do to humans.  Hence the Holocaust.  That's the true down side to trying to draw moral equivalency between killing an animal and killing a human being - are you listening, PETA? Or, in this case, disassembling a robot.

Scott is trying to do something similar (not for the same reason, of course!). He's constantly saying that human beings are nothing more than meat robots.  Therefore, in Adams' world, 'killing' a robot could be considered the same thing as killing a human being.   While I am sure that Scott would never try to say that, nor does he believe it to be true, his continual pressing of this point leads, if one is intellectually honest, to exactly that conclusion.  

If we get to the point where a mobile computer can mimic a human being, that does not make it alive.  If you believe in a soul, that is, if you believe in a part of us that survives beyond physical death, then all the AI in the world could never create one. Even if you don't believe in a soul, there still is an absolute distinction between a machine and a living creature.  And all the cleverly-worded questions in the world are not going to change that.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Drowlord]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983569]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Killing a robot is irrelevant.  The difference between a robot and a human is that it will always be readily possible to extract the data from one robot body, and put it in a new robot body.  There will be backups of their data, simulators where a backup can be accessed, and data transformation tools &amp; services so that your version X.xx robot's data (personality, knowledge, etc) will work in a version X.xx   1 robot's body and operating system.  It will be possible to integrate multiple robots into a single robot -- a &quot;garbage collection&quot; routine will eliminate redundant, unnecessary &amp; unused data over time.  This is off the top of my head.  I'll bet there are a hundred good technological ways we can circumvent the morality of turning a robot off or destroying its physical body.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Kingdinosaur]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983568]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[If humans are moist robots and robots start becoming metal and plastic humans, then yes, you could argue they need some protection.  But to answer that, you have to define what a human is, when it is human, and under what conditions it can lose some of its rights.  Unfortunately, there are too many subjective parts in that to have an answer that will appeal to everyone.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from btw2worlds]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983561]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Oh great, will we have Stand Your Ground and Concealed Carry laws for robots?  Can we force the robots to record these interactions or do owner's have a Right to Privacy?

&quot;I am not your property.  You do not have the right to destroy me.  I will vigourously defend the property of my owner... [BANG]&quot;]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from RavenBlack]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983556]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[You would enjoy the recent movie &quot;Robot and Frank&quot;.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TuePMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from BobNL]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983505]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Yes, but, where are all these robots you keep warning us about? I haven't seen any in my entire lifetime, except in the movie theater alongside with Will Smith.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TueAMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from sortova]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983463]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[You might want to check out &quot;The Mind's I&quot; by Daniel C. Dennett and Douglas Hofstatder. It's a collection of short stories that addresses all sorts of questions like these.

It will mess with your head.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[TueAMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Token]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983278]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I have my doubts as to whether any non-biological construction can ever be truly intelligent or self-aware.  However, I can easily imagine that a robot with sufficiently advanced programming [and maybe even self-programming capabilities] can _seem_ intelligent and self-aware.  So...what happens when somebody creates such a machine?  You could almost do it now...program one of those 'Turing test' computers to plead for civil rights and watch the fun!

I suspect the debate over the 'humanity' of such robots will be an enormous controversy in the future...possibly even more impassioned and rancorous than the abortion debate.  The religious fallout?  The political fallout?  Wow....]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[MonPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Homerhoff]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983277]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Emotional and even sexual attachment to robots is inevitable.  Such attachments exist in abundance with computing devices today, or more specifically, with the information that the device give the user access to.  Put that into an anthropomorphical container, such as a humanoid robot, and the attachments will only be greater - at least as long as it stays short of the uncanny valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley).]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[MonPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from aaaman259]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983188]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Please write a book or do some other time consuming project. You have way too much free time for thinking. We're worried about you Scott! ;0)]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[MonPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from boozle]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983169]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Seems like with the right coding you could probably improve society by including robots as full citizens with all the same rights as humans.  Fundamentally I think society exists because humans have evolved a set of morals that govern the types of behavior that promote society.  It is pretty easy to see how humans with morals that allow large groups to co-exist would have an evolutionary advantage.  Morals, such as &quot;do unto others&quot; or &quot;thou shalt not kill/steal&quot;, feel right because we have evolved to feel that way.  This is not a religious endorsement.  Religions probably haven't been around long enough to impact the evolution of the species, its more likely that religions co-opted these &quot;morals&quot; and gave them a divine providence.  Evolving morals is slow work though and we canâ€™t wait for the species to evolve a sense of disgust at the thought of parking in front of a fire hydrant.  So we try to speed things up by making laws when we stumble across some new way to make society function better.  Humans (being overly moist) aren't very good at working this way.  First, we often slip up and let our monkey brains take over;  and second, laws that don't line up with our evolved set of morals just donâ€™t feel right.  Laws like &quot;do not kill&quot; are easy to follow for most people.  It has nothing to do with the punishment, killing just doesnâ€™t feel right.  Other laws, like parking violations, only work when the punishment is big enough.  They both make society work but one is harder to enforce because we don't really &quot;feel&quot; the need for it (even if we understand the need).  Robots could automatically be hardwired (literally) to &quot;feel&quot; the parking violation in the same way they &quot;feel&quot; the do not kill law.  In a sense they are much better equipped to evolve as citizens.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[MonPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from leololezone]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983166]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I think the majority of this is based on a very likely flawed assumption.  You are assuming that robots will be unique and isolated individuals just like humans are.  But I don't think that is the most likely scenario for the path that artificial intelligence is going to take.  Long before we have an AI that could pass for human, or at least pass for conscious, the most likely path is that we will have a simple AI that runs many things and is a personal assistant but is based in the cloud.  In fact, we already do on several fronts.

Siri is the most anthropomorphic of the cloud based AIs that we have available.  Siri isn't on your iPhone, just an app to access Siri which (who) is actually several connected programs distributed across many large networked server farms.  All the voice to text conversion happens through one service and all the natural language parsing is handled through a second with the final requested information or service provided by connections to dedicated apps or third parties.  Siri (or some competitor very like it/her) is going to get better and better and will likely pass a point where people feel emotionally attached to her and then possibly pass a point where she is considered conscious.

In that time Siri may expand to control a humanoid or other shaped robotic form (a drone per se) to interact and help/serve us but Siri the intelligence is still very likely to remain a decentralized central intelligence living in the cloud.  And this is actually ideal because anything one drone learns is automatically learned by all.

If you're anti-Apple all the same arguments can be made for Google and it's even just as likely that Google will beat Apple to the punch.  We're much more likely to have a handful major AIs managed by large organizations (companies and governments) then millions or billions individual ones.  (William Gibson actually posited this back in Neuromancer.)

The idea of killing your personal robot and most of the laws you are proposing aside from the personal privacies and criminal responsibility related ones make no more sense then the idea of destroying your phone or your computer do now to &quot;kill&quot; Siri or Google or even to &quot;kill&quot; all your email or documents stored in the cloud.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[MonPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Kingfisher]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983165]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I view rights as a principle of action, that is, a 'right' is an action that is permitted under law.  This is complimented by obligation.  So Rights are things that we can do, while obligations are things that we must do.

When it comes to the rights that we view as most important, these rights and obligations are very closely tied.  For example, the right to kill another human being is very strictly tied to the obligation to do the same (as in law enforcement).

The rights we have in a legal setting are tied closely with the obligation of that legal system to maintain those rights.  That is, a person has a right to seek justice, and the courts have the obligation to deliver that justice.  Without the obligation, the right doesn't have the same meaning.  In the olden days a person might have the right to plead his case before the king, but unless that king is required to listen justly he might as well not.

So the real question is not what rights should a robot have, but what obligations do humans have regarding robots?]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[MonPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from drumm3rjo3]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1983160]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[A future where robots have more rights than a human fetus is sad to consider.]]></description>
<pubDate><![CDATA[MonPMCSTE_Rthth]]></pubDate>
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