Human Rights for "Realian" Androids

[Raichu Mistress]

For those of us who play Xenosaga, we are familiar with the Miltian Charter that gives human rights to Realians and the conflict between Shion and some people who hate Realians.

For those of us that don't play Xenosaga, Realians are machines who look and act just like people, with emotions and everything. Puppets. (KOS-MOS is the real weapon and has to keep riminding Shion that she's not human, Realians are more like artificial humans.)

Now what I'm wondering is, if something like them exists someday, should they be considered human? I'm not sure, really, I mean I like MOMO and the others, and they should have protection and stuff, but it just sounds bizarre, and the bottom line is, they aren't humans. I'm thinking about Shion's conversation with Virgil and he made really good points about the weapons-grade Realians (military soldiers) being created to fight. Shion was trying to stop them, during a Gnosis attack. I just dunno how that would work in real life with androids. *I'd be for giving them rights but calling the rights "human rights" just seems awkward... what do you guys think?

 

[Barb]

Why is it that when I first saw this topic I thought of the Raelians, the religious group who claims to have cloned a human?

I think the key is that they are artificial humans. They're technically machines, no matter how human they may look. So any human rights outlined in any nation's constitution or by the United Nations still wouldn't apply to them.

As long as they're Three Laws safe...

 

[GrnMarvl14]

You're not the only one, Barb. I was wondering when the Raelians had created an android.

As for the main topic at hand. I have one bit of advice for anyone who's unsure on this matter: Read some Isaac Asimov. It may just make you even more unsure, but it's a damned good read. Also, there's an episode of the Animatrix that deals with this in a VERY realistic way (and the androids create their own country and apply to be members of the UN). Thus...my opinion is shaped by animation and literature. Like any good American.

 

[Doctor Oak]

Do you give your Computer rights?

Should you go to jail for abusing your Compy by overclocking it too much and causing it to burn out?

Androids are nothing more but computers in a shell built to look like humans to stroke our own egos that we are apparently the zenith of existence. All thoughts and feelings they would ever have would be pre-programmed and false and so would treating them as living, breathing, and unbound by set variables and code humans.

 

[Jukain]

This is where present law breaks apart. Yes, they are not human, but they are a sentient lifeform. Anything that has the power to choose its own destiny deserves to have the right to do so.

 

[Raichu Mistress]

LOL! I've never heard of the Raelians, but I'm hooked on Xenosaga at the moment. Realian is pronounced "Ree-al-ee-an"

 

[Fig]

It depends entirely on the machine.

When we start programing them with emotions (not the ability to MIMIC emotions. The ability to really feel them, if that can be accomplished one day), then they deserve rights. A machine that could laugh or cry (or feel joy, or sorrow) deserves more than any computer, no matter whether humans, gods or the laws of nature created it.

As long as they're unfeelign machines that only draw stuff from databases and process code, on the other hand...

 

[Barb]

"Bicentennial Man" aside, how do you program emotions?

 

[Doctor Oak]

Realistically it's impossible to give machines real emotions. Even mimicing them is a daunting task in itself as it would require reams and reams and reams and reams of parameters, variables, functions and other fluff just to emulate a smile.

As real emotions are completely random, however - and unbound by set parameters, it is impossible for machines to ever 'feel' for real. Technology can advance all it likes but when it comes down to it programming will always be the same variable, constant, statement, parameter, function, blah-blah-blah. Always kept well within the barriers of its own coding.

 

[The Big Al]

I take the Asimov view of robotics. We'll never make an artifical human. We are the created, not the creators. We can make a robot look like a human, talk like a human, even act like a human. However, they'll be human.

 

[Fig]

I don't think it can be done, and most certainly not in the near future.

What I'm doing is simply introducing a caveat - if we ever *can* do it, then the creation need to be given human rights.

Or, in other words, trying to establish a difference between machines which happen to look like humans, and what would essentialy amount to humans that happens to have mechanicals (rather than biological) systems.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

programming will always be the same variable, constant, statement, parameter, function, blah-blah-blah. Always kept well within the barriers of its own coding.

Here's a question that comes up a lot in sci-fi stuff: What happens if they start doing things that they're NOT programmed to (and I'm not talking about them going ape-shit and killing everything in sight)? What if the only thing separating them from humanity is what they're made of (and possibly the ability to reproduce internally, but there's a semantics issue there)?

 

[Doctor Oak]

Taking a leap from reality ('Cause frankly, in the real world, it's never, ever, going to be a problem), if we were to somehow create perfect AI. AI that feels, learns and can somehow perform random tasks that are not pre-programmed for it to do, then it's closeness to humanity is a pretty short leap.

However, it has to be pointed out that non-human animals can also do all those things. We may have safeguards for animals and animal rights to a degree but we most certainly do not let them onto the UN.

So, really, the only difference between an Android with perfect AI and an Ape in terms of humanity would be the fact Androids would be pre-programmed to understand and communicate in a way we can understand easily. However, Apes can communicate with humans and we can understand their communications - they just don't communicate with words. So that's the crux.

If Apes were to suddenly start speaking English (or any other language), does that automatically mean we hand over a seat on the UN to them?

Androids are not humans, Apes are not humans. Androids may be programmed to be very intelligent, but Apes are pretty smart too - hell, they're smarter than most humans in the world p).

I don't think most people would hand over half the world to a bunch of monkeys, (Heh, although I guess you could say we already have ) and on the same track, Androids - no matter how perfect we may set their AI up to be would never be in the same position either.

 

[Fig]

By your standard, alien civilizations, if and when mankind encounters such (which, all things considered, is probably far more likely to one day happens than the whole perfect AI thing), deserves no "human" rights either.

Not necessarily a problem if the aliens are the one who encounters us (since chances are if they reach us first, we won't be in much of a position to harm them), but quite an issue if we humans are the ones doing the discovering.

 

[Doctor Oak]

Would we need to? Surely any Alien culture we would somehow stumble across that we would consider being able to communicate with would have their own society establishments anyway.

Even basic animals have the same society instincts we have, there's little reason not to assume that any creature - whatever world it was born on - would similarly do the same thing.

The need to extend our own society and attempt to force it upon theirs should be non-existant. Androids wouldn't be like that 'cause their society wouldn't really exist. I mean, you don't build a machine so it can go off with other machines and start their own country. No matter how intelligent they would ever become, machines would be created to help or serve humans.

At the most, assuming perfect AI would be possible and incorperates the machine being able to actually feel emotions based on the events and people around it, being simply courteous would be the most rights I would extend.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

We may have safeguards for animals and animal rights to a degree but we most certainly do not let them onto the UN.

But you're forgetting the biggest difference: Sentience. We don't normally consider apes to be sentient, but the AI certainly would be. If apes COULD request admittance to the UN (and showed understanding of the UN and what it would actually mean to join), then how could we turn them down? Communication and understanding are vastly different.

Surely any Alien culture we would somehow stumble across that we would consider being able to communicate with would have their own society establishments anyway.

True, but it's the same as running across some mysteriously undiscovered group of humans on Earth that have somehow developed technology that's roughly equivalent to the rest of the world (I'm so happy this thread has NO basis in reality). Or maybe they're super-evolved animals of some sort. Or something slightly less ridiculous but of the same nature.

And keep in mind man's need to force itself upon...oh...everything. Or imagine if some alien world had something we desired (better space travel, more resources, a different value of wealth, etc.).

 

[Fig]

Just because they'd have their own culture does NOT preclude granting them human rights.

If we don't recognize them as having human rights, we could technically enslave them, kill them, etc.

Just because it has "human" in the name doesn't mean it should be exclusive to humans.

 

[Doctor Oak]

That's not human rights. That's just not being a complete and utter bastard.

But you're forgetting the biggest difference: Sentience. We don't normally consider apes to be sentient, but the AI certainly would be.

Sentience in animals is highly debatable in itself. Who's to say apes don't sit around pondering on existence as they scratch their partners? There's no possible way of knowing unless they can communicate that in words to us. Again, the only difference is that Androids would be pre-programmed to be able to communicate the fact they are sentient to us.

 

[Fig]

And, since we would know for a fact that such androids were both sentient and sapient (since they could communicate with us to prove it), there would be NO VALID REASON to deny them the rights and protections we give to the only sentient/sapients we know of right now (ie, us).

And actually, slavery, murder, etc is EXACTLY what human rights are about.

 

[smog]

Androids are nothing more but computers in a shell built to look like humans to stroke our own egos that we are apparently the zenith of existence. All thoughts and feelings they would ever have would be pre-programmed and false and so would treating them as living, breathing, and unbound by set variables and code humans.

I don't think you fully understand the subject. The whole point of AI is to come up with ways for machines to acquire and apply knowledge without any pre-programmation. Machine learning, evolutionary algorithms are some fields that aim to give machines the tools needed for them to become, automatically, as intelligent as humans. There's nothing "set" or "fixed" in those intelligent machines; they learn and adapt just like us.

If, in the future, a machine arises which would have equal intelligence to us, it would be no more programmed to be intelligent than we are programmed to be intelligent via the evolution process. Saying the contrary is ignoring everything that's been done in the field in the last 50 years.

"Bicentennial Man" aside, how do you program emotions?

You can program them by simply reproducing the way they work in humans. In humans, from my understanding, it works a bit like this:

-you hear a sound of a certain pitch at 2 am;
-you understand that it is a door opening;
-you infer (perhaps falsely) that your husband is cheating on you;
-that new belief triggers the "angry" emotion;
-that emotion unleashes hormones, reorganizes many connections in the brain;
-the new brain acts differently, which is apparent in yelling and violent motions;
-the emotion fades down, but the memory of the belief is still associated with an emotion and an action, and many connections will stay and will modify future reactions;

In principle, it is pretty straightforward to do this for a computer. It will need to gather perceptions (camera, microphone). It will need to be able to understand what they represent, and of course, it will need to be able to interpret them. Once that is done, the perceptions, the interpretations and the beliefs will be simple data the program can access from its own internal storage space. Some data will trigger some emotion, and that emotion will make changes to the main program. Those changes will make it behave differently. After some time, some of those changes will be reverted, and some will stay - the changes that stay will be the program's experience.

A bigger problem is to know exactly what a given emotion does. A solution would be to mimic nature and use evolution. The emotions we have aren't useless - happiness is usually correlated with good being, for example. So we could "evolve" emotions by rewarding those that are the most useful. Perhaps they'd be different from ours, but I suspect they'd be very similar.

As real emotions are completely random, however - and unbound by set parameters, it is impossible for machines to ever 'feel' for real. Technology can advance all it likes but when it comes down to it programming will always be the same variable, constant, statement, parameter, function, blah-blah-blah. Always kept well within the barriers of its own coding.

Real emotions are not completely random. I don't know where you got such a silly idea. I don't know where you got the idea that programming is so set in stone either because, on the contrary, it can be very dynamic. You also misrepresent the "barriers of its own coding": a program can be as tight as a program adding two numbers together, or as wide as evolution. Clearly, you are willing to accept the barriers of evolution; given that programs can achieve the same level of flexibility, I don't really see what your point is.

Also, machines can be much better than humans at being random. Just try saying 100 random numbers between 1 and 100 (repetitions allowed). It's quite hard to do it without inserting some obvious patterns.

Or, in other words, trying to establish a difference between machines which happen to look like humans, and what would essentialy amount to humans that happens to have mechanicals (rather than biological) systems.

Artificial intelligence is abstract and independant of materials, thus it is reasonable to assume that biological computers will eventually be made, and that they will do the same things "mechanical" computers do (but maybe faster). In that case even that distinction might not hold

Here's a question that comes up a lot in sci-fi stuff: What happens if they start doing things that they're NOT programmed to (and I'm not talking about them going ape-shit and killing everything in sight)? What if the only thing separating them from humanity is what they're made of (and possibly the ability to reproduce internally, but there's a semantics issue there)?

If a program does something it is not programmed to, then the program is bugged. Usually, bugs lead to crashing or garbage. If a machine which is intended to do X ends up to be a sentient being, it is either because somebody did it on purpose or gross design errors were made: such an error would be to build the machine's intelligence with general purpose evolutionary algorithms without guiding it properly (so it adapts to do something else than intended), or to forget to stop the process once it knows how to do its task.

A well done robot does its task and nothing more. When discussing "accidents" as they happen in science fiction, we have to be well aware of the fiction part of the genre, because in most sci-fi books, I'll have to say that the only reasonable explanation to the accidents is unfathomable stupidity

If Apes were to suddenly start speaking English (or any other language), does that automatically mean we hand over a seat on the UN to them?

If they were also intelligent enough to understand what's going on, I don't see why not.

The need to extend our own society and attempt to force it upon theirs should be non-existant. Androids wouldn't be like that 'cause their society wouldn't really exist. I mean, you don't build a machine so it can go off with other machines and start their own country. No matter how intelligent they would ever become, machines would be created to help or serve humans.

I agree with that to some extent. A priori, there is no incentive to make machines any more than servants, so it's pretty safe to say that the most your DomesticBot 3000 will ever do is communicate with you in perfect english for your own convenience.

This said, there are some situations where reproducing human sentience and emotions would be done: as a proof of concept, as a virtual friend, in games or to do simulations. However, only the first case wouldn't have sanity checks to make sure humans enjoy them and can abuse them with no moral qualms.

In any case, the emergence of a "genuine" android society would probably require national scale incompetence.

Just because they'd have their own culture does NOT preclude granting them human rights.

If we don't recognize them as having human rights, we could technically enslave them, kill them, etc.

Just because it has "human" in the name doesn't mean it should be exclusive to humans.

It depends to what extent your empathy can go. Most of the criteras you might use to decide whether to give human rights or not (intelligence, sentience, emotions etc.) have extremely blurry, if not arbitrary boundaries. When you realize that from "mimicing" emotions to "feeling" them there is a continuum of intermediary methods and that a clear cut way to distinguish them shines from its absence, you also have to realize that "human rights" are partly arbitrary.

In fact, empathy pretty much sums up the decision. We very easily give our family, our own gender and our own race the same rights we have because we empathize with them almost perfectly. We easily give humanity the same rights for the same reason. We give animals some rights because we can understand their suffering, but we still keep a certain distance. We don't care much about insects, even less about plants. Bacteria? Fuck bacteria. Machines? Are you kidding?

That's pretty much the way we work. Personally, if I enjoyed discussing and interacting with machines, I would probably give them the rights they need. It's just a matter of respect.