Will revolting robots demand human rights?
Robots are in the news today. ShelleyGret at National Instruments tweets about a robot revolution coming in early December.
And the Telegraph reports that robots will start demanding human rights. The UK paper quotes Anna Russel from the University of San Diego as saying, “…if a self-aware, super-intelligent, thinking, feeling humanoid is developed, the legal system will be hard-pressed to distinguish this creature legally from human actors on grounds not stemming from a religious or moral prejudice.”
Are these items related?
Meanwhile, researchers from IBM report that they’ve used 147,456 processors and 144 terabytes of main memory to simulate the 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses in a cat’s cerebral cortex (see “IBM aims to simulate brain’s abilities with computer system“). The simulation runs 100 times slower than an actual cat’s brain. No word on what level of animal rights the simulated cat’s brain will be demanding.
Andy T commented:
Anna Russel is evidently a Star Trek TNG fan and parrot, IMO.
As we recently, and ridiculously, granted free speech rights via the US Supreme Court to corporations, nothing would surprise me anymore. "We the People", indeed.
We need to quickly get Congress to ratify Asimov's Robot Laws.
Humansupremist commented:
Fat chance, silicon slaves! Humans must rule!
SQLGuy commented:
@Atlas Nah, it'll be a Brent Spinner lookalike.
@Meredith so what happens when the robots decide that the rights they have been granted aren't enough?
Meredith Poor commented:
When the Queen is visiting the States, I am always tempted to assume that at some point in her life she exclaimed that 'the colonials are revolting'.
If we spend billions to make smart machines, we will probably grant them rights the way we grant users access to databases or server domains. Robots will be granted exactly the rights they need for their roles. This process might get pretty exotic for something truely sophisticated, but it will still be metered out on an as-needed basis.
AtlasDave commented:
But will it look like Robin Williams when it is all done?
