Robot Rights, A.I. Law, Activism, Personal Experience
Human rights are justified for several reasons. Some believe rights are an immutable part of human nature, founded on our ability to reason, a respect for dignity and autonomy or related to humanity’s capacity for pain and compassion. Others see rights claims as a social construct, designed to allow for a productive society. By protecting the rights of others, we presume the same protections will be awarded to us, meaning our property and other interests will be secured. Quid pro quo is central to understanding the function of rights as a collective ideal. Still, others believe that some external agent awards rights. Humanity must ensure the obligations rights create are carried out. Rather than being dependent on man’s existence, rights transcend man, being the creation of a higher being. Truthfully, the origins of rights can never be categorically explained. There is simply no way of knowing which reason explains the existence of rights. In all likelihood, the answer is a mixture of the three. Many of the relevant factors have probably never even been considered.
So, if human rights have several potential justifications, then the same must be true of any other rights claims. Take vegetarianism. Some vegetarians believe that animals possess the level of intelligence, consciousness, capacity for pain (whatever term you would like to use) necessary to be treated with the same basic respect afforded to human beings. Humans are mammals. Mammals are animals. Human beings are treated with respect. Ergo, all animals should be treated with respect. The chain of reasoning is devilishly simple. Among vegetarians (I use the term broadly) though there is debate as to the level of protection respect requires. Pescetarians don’t include fish in their assessment of animals, arguing fish are in some way inferior to other animals. Vegetarians in the narrow sense have no moral qualms with using animal products, like cheese or milk, as respect only requires that animals be free to live a natural lifespan. Vegans are against farming practices entirely, believing any use of animal products is morally wrong. A more extreme view would be that any form of domestication is altogether inconsistent with the need to grant animals respect. I haven't even accounted for vegetarians whose dietary choices are because of pollution caused by the livestock and poultry industries.
Fights for robotic rights will need to account for similar variation in the debate. Indeed, few people would argue that a household toaster requires emancipation. But where is the line in the sand? Home assistants may be okay so long as they're confined to internet searches, while robots that can tell your emotions may have enough consciousness to deserve protection. Automatic checkouts might be moral while creating your own friends, family, and lovers is not. Honestly, nobody will ever be able to get the balance right the first time. Centuries on, after countless attempts, society should have found its feet. Until actual robots are living among us, predicting where the line actually is amounts to trying to predict the lottery numbers. We are all blind, walking in the dark, hoping to reach salvation.
Opinions are endless. Facts can always be combined together in a new and exciting way. Politicians make a living out of twisting information to support their own views, even as the other side uses the same facts to discredit them. Trying to give one definitive reason why you should support robotic rights is thus pointless. I could write thousands of articles on every discipline known to man, but even if they all point towards promoting robotic rights, there will always be one factor that I did not consider. Even the temperature in Montana on October 14th 2000 might be enough to blow the entire argument out of the water. What I can do is explain why I support robotic rights and hope that gives you some guidance in deciding that you should do the same.
In previous posts, I have made it clear that Bryson’s ‘robots should be slaves’ was a fundamental piece in drawing me into the debate on machine rights. Initially, though, I actually agreed with Bryson. At 17, I had yet to spot the flaws in Bryson’s analogy that I have now attempted to bring to light. Given a few months, I would do, but for a time, the simplicity of the ideas presented in that article. Robots are not like human beings because of X, Y and Z, so we can enslave robots.
Why then did everything change? Ironically my inspiration came from a blog post much like this. One observation completely changed my views. Consider:
"You are all aware of the story where robots with highly advanced artificial intelligence fight back against being enslaved by humanity. However, I see a parallel in history with this story. In the early days of America, many Africans were brought over to North America and enslaved to work on plantations. My question is: Could the production of artificially intelligent robots hearken back to the slaves on plantations? Would these robots be enslaved to people just as the Africans were back then?”
Whereas Bryson had attempted to dismiss analogies with human beings by highlighting some crucial dissimilarities, by drawing on history and pop culture, the plight of robots could be humanised. Logic of the sort actually inspired the first article I ever finished, where I argued we should not make the same mistakes as the Romans. What the analogy between robots and the American slave trade does is highlight a more fundamental point. For as long as there have been men, there has been slavery in one form or another. For as long as there has been slavery, there have been apologists. Enslaving the native Americans was okay because, through servitude, they were able to learn the correct way to live, being forced to settle as farming communities on the reservations. Colonising India was okay because the locals weren’t exploiting their resources properly. Gold, silks and opium could only properly be utilised by the civilised men of London, Paris and Lisbon. Now robots can be slaves because they “lack emotions” or are our own creations.
Guess what. Humanity is repeating itself again. Artificial intelligence has never created its own civilisation. A.I. is thus uncivilised. Shakespeare, Tolkien and Pacaso were all homo sapiens, not robots. Machines are made of metal, not flesh. What everyone’s attention is being focused on is division. Only by focusing on what unifies us will actual progress be possible. “I am Legion, for we are many” is a quote meant to inspire fear. Mankind can never hope to overcome the evils of the world for they are too numerous in volume. Interprete the same phrase differently, and you have a beacon of hope. “I am Legion, for we are many.” I have the power of an army because we as one are so many in number. I am strong because we are united. I am one with the masses, although each one of us, each member of the mass, are so different from one another.
Analogies exist as the mind draws similarities and dissimilarities between situations to help it understand the world before it. History is simply the study of the world. Every event forms part of a greater whole, woven together to chronicle the exploits of all beings. Today, we feel empathy for those who have come before us for wrongs we have no control over. Tomorrow, our children will mourn for the same evils we have brought onto the world. Britain only recently paid off the last of the lend-lease from the Second World War. Calls for the descendants of slaves to receive reparations in America are only now being heard. In what year will society finally admit to itself that eating meat was a wrong that should be repaid or that fast fashion must make amends for the thousands of lives lost? There are thousands of things we do now without thought that will one day be despised. Spartans are called barbaric for leaving the weak in the cold to die. We mourn the loss of the dodos to hunters hundreds of years ago. But these people cannot be judged for their actions by our standards. Accepting conduct is immoral does not entail taring good people with disgust for not knowing better. Each generation is a child, brought into a world of chaos and told to survive. Some were just unfortunate in that they lacked the wealth of experience we can draw on to make the right choices. No analogies could be made because no prior situations existed. Slaves could be enslaved because there was no benchmark to which individuals could compare themselves to. Our generation lacks the same excuse. Time has moved forward. History has occurred. More and more situations exist to which our minds can draw analogies to. The annals of time will be able to tar us with hatred and condemnation because we should know better. Wrongs have already happened once. These days, our immoral acts amount to a repetition.
So why support robot rights? I cannot answer that question for you. Convictions are a matter of the heart, not the mind. A thousand words can be written, a million reasons can be given, but if the heart is not convinced, then the battle is still lost. People will do what people will choose to do. Hopefully reminding you that your actions will stand in history for the rest of time is enough to convince you to help stop the evils of tomorrow. It certainly was for me.