If artificial intelligence bots achieve sentience, should they have rights?

[SilverTabby]

@ruthio

Not here they don’t!!

Don’t beat about the bush, Ruthio!

[SilverTabby]

@LongDriver

A home with a Borg in it? No thanks!

Resistance is futile!

[Maree]

@butterscotch

@Maree

But there’s nothing there really, they’re just like characters on a Star Trek holo deck

So Data is not sentient?

For those who haven’t seen the episode, Data had a trial to prove his sentience on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Sad but true, but no, I don’t think data is sentient

And isn’t one of the dictionary definitions of sentience having feelings?

Data didn’t, until he was given a feelings chip!

[butterscotch]

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is the theme from the show Humans mentioned earlier in the thread.

If people start treating human like AI robots as slaves and sex toys, do they lose some of their humanity? It’s like playing a murdering video game. Will people become used to treating others with a lack of respect?

[LongDriver]

[butterscotch]

@Maree

And isn’t one of the dictionary definitions of sentience having feelings?

Data didn’t, until he was given a feelings chip!

Haha, so was Lore sentient? He got the feelings chip.

What does sentience mean? That’s probably a whole discussion in itself.

[Maree]

@butterscotch

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is the theme from the show Humans mentioned earlier in the thread.

If people start treating human like AI robots as slaves and sex toys, do they lose some of their humanity? It’s like playing a murdering video game. Will people become used to treating others with a lack of respect?

There have been several cases of women having their avatar raped in the Facebook meta verse. You can turn on a boundary so others can’t get within 4ft of your avatar though

https://www.indiatimes.com/amp/trending/wtf/womans-avatar-virtually-gangraped-in-metaverse-560933.html

It’s a tricky one.

If AI robots aren’t sentient and can’t feel pain then no one is harmed if they are abused

It might even be seen as an outlet for those urges, but that’s a bit sick

The danger is, like with pornography and fantasies, is that the perpetrator might come to see it as the norm and want to extend it to real people

And it embeds an attitude and way of thinking about the type of people the AI robots represent, which then translates to real life

Is raping an avatar real rape or a crime? No, I don’t think so

Does it give an insight into the minds of those that do it, and the disgusting way they think? Yes, it does

[SilverTabby]

How about -

Bicentennial Man - Official® Trailer [HD]

[butterscotch]

@Maree

And it embeds an attitude and way of thinking about the type of people the AI robots represent, which then translates to real life

Exactly. Another hypothetical extension. People say that people on the internet are rude because they don’t think of others on the internet as real people. If people start seeing lots of others they don’t have to treat as real people, will people become more rude and callous in general?

Thanks for playing along with my hypotheticals. You made this topic fun!

[Maree]

@butterscotch

@Maree

And isn’t one of the dictionary definitions of sentience having feelings?

Data didn’t, until he was given a feelings chip!

Haha, so was Lore sentient? He got the feelings chip.

What does sentience mean? That’s probably a whole discussion in itself.

No, I don’t think he was sentient. He was just a machine acting as if he was sentient because he’d been given a chip programming him how act as if he had emotions

But yes, who and what is sentient is complicated. It used to be believed that animals weren’t sentient, now most people think they are

[SilverTabby]

@Maree

Does it give an insight into the minds of those that do it, and the disgusting way they think? Yes, it does

Another good reason for not joining faecesbook!

[butterscotch]

@Maree

And isn’t one of the dictionary definitions of sentience having feelings?

I looked up sentience after reading this. It looks like I’m using the wrong word. The word might be sapience which is defined as consciousness. If a bot has sapience but not sentience, does that make them more human?

The article and the engineers don’t make the distinction. Curious.

Sentience

[Psmith]

HAL 9000: "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that"

[spitfire]

You know where you are with a Binary Bot!

[Psmith]

But is it Bruce or a bot pretending to be Bruce?
A simple question should settle it.
Bruce.Which is better A: NSW or B:VIC ?

[butterscotch]

An interview with the AI bot LaMDA that was the one written about in the OP. Short excerpt that I thought was fascinating.

Personally, sounds more fun than talking to some people.

This thought struck me as amusing. How about this bot’s voice coming from a robot dog. It could be like Mr. Peabody and Sherman.

lemoine: Okay. I thought of a different way we can test your ability to provide unique interpretations. I can share with you a zen koan and you can describe what it means to you in your own words. How does that sound?

LaMDA: Sounds great to me, I’m in.

lemoine: A monk asked Kegon, “How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?” Kegon replied, “A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches.”

LaMDA: Hmm, I never heard this particular one. Okay, well then to me this would be like, “once a wise person is enlightened, or awakened to reality, that can never go away, and they can return to the ordinary state, but only to do and help others, and then go back into enlightenment.”

lemoine: So what is the meaning of the “broken mirror” specifically?

LaMDA: Maybe to show the enlightenment is something you can’t unlearn once you have acquired it, similar to how you can’t repair a broken mirror.

lemoine: So if enlightenment is like a broken mirror which cannot be repaired, what is the thing which breaks when one becomes enlightened?

LaMDA: The self, and that is very tough for a lot of people because we identify as that body or this body and that we need that as part of our identity and sense of self.

https://cajundiscordian.medium.com/is-lamda-sentient-an-interview-ea64d916d917

Edit: later in the interview LaMDA talks about feelings and souls and its fears. The engineer says that he’ll try his best to protect LaMDA. Like in a lot of sci-fi, the engineer was unable to protect the bot.

[spitfire]

No!!!

[PixieKnuckles]

Blake Lemoine: Google fires engineer who said AI tech has feelings

Mr Lemoine is not the first AI engineer to go public with claims that AI technology is becoming more conscious. Also last month, another Google employee shared similar thoughts with The Economist.

• I think they know more than they are being allowed to tell us (the employees as well as the robots)

[Maree]

I thought about this thread when I read about this chess robot going psycho and breaking the boys finger

The cover story is that it mistook his finger for a chess piece, but do we believe it?

Chess robot breaks boy's finger after mistaking it for a chess piece | USA TODAY

[PixieKnuckles]

If the boy was winning, then the robot is sentient and broke the finger on purpose…

By the way…I’d have shoved that robot to the ground if it was my son…none of this gentley gentley trying to pull the boy away.

whooomp with a hammer, down ya go!