David QuinnAdvances in robotics could prompt ethical discussions on human rights, writes David Quinn
A new series began on Channel 4 last Sunday night called Humans. It is set in the not-too-distant future when very human-like robots have been invented, robots that can do everyday tasks around the house or undertake manual labour like factory work or picking fruit. These robots are ‘artificially intelligent’ to the point of being able to have conversations on a limited number of issues with their human owners.
Some humans develop attachments to these robots. A lonely pensioner played by American actor, William Hurt, has become attached to his robot house-keeper since his wife died.
Other humans regard these robots simply as their property.
Humans is only one episode in so we have to see how it will develop but already it is exploring issues such as whether or not robots such as these will make humans obsolescent in certain respects.
For example, the daughter of one of the main characters is approaching university age and is wondering why she should even bother going to university now that robots can outperform humans, and for no money, in any job that does not involve a very high level of intellectual ability.
Servants
She and many of her generation mightily resent their robot servants, viewing them as a threat. In the real world we’ve already seen machines take over many human tasks (in factories for example), but imagine if these machines become more capable and human-like?
One of the robot-servants is named Anita. A man buys her because his wife has a very busy legal career and between work duties and home duties the couple have almost no time for each other.
But the wife resents the robot. She feels threatened by her. For one thing, the robot is extremely beautiful looking. Also, she is co-opting all her roles around the house, even minding the children.
The wife didn’t like having to perform domestic chores, but far more resents her husband (who also did domestic chores) off-loading them to Anita.
She didn’t like doing those chores, but they made her feel needed around the house. It’s even worse that their youngest daughter actually prefers Anita, because Anita is never stressed and is infinitely patient.
What ordinary person could possibly compete with a never stressed, infinitely patient, ultra-efficient, beautiful looking robot?
The big advantage that humans still have over these robots is that they can programme them according to their needs, turn them off and on at a whim and remain more intelligent than them on the whole.
These robots are still very much in the service of humans, even while their efficiency and their supreme cost effectiveness to employers, threatens to replace them in many important respects.
But so long as they can’t think for themselves and become self-aware and self-motivated, human ascendency is not ultimately threatened.
However, a handful of these robots have become self-aware and self-motivated.
They have developed thoughts and desires of their own and to that extent have become almost human (to borrow the title of the Swedish series upon which this Channel 4 series is based).
Arising from this fact there is even a rudimentary robot liberation front depicted in episode one with the aim of freeing these robots from their owners.
One of the self-aware robots is the aforementioned Anita. So far she has not revealed her self-awareness to her family that owns her.
If we ever did manage to develop robots as intelligent as this, ones that were self-aware and had their own motivations, what would the moral status of such machines would be?
It is clear that the machine I am using to type up this article has no moral status whatsoever. It has no intelligence of its own and no feelings of its own. I can treat it as I please.
An animal, on the other hand, should be treated well. Animals might not be self-aware and rational, but to varying degrees they have intelligence, they have emotions, and they can experience pain and pleasure. This is why we hate to see animals treated cruelly.
If animals deserve to be treated humanely (note the word), then wouldn’t the same thing have to apply to intelligent, self-aware, rational machines with inner emotional lives of their own if we ever manage to invent them?
I believe the answer is yes. After all, to a certain extent we are machines ourselves. One scientist has called us ‘meat machines’. In our case our ‘machines’ are made of flesh and blood.
Some of these scientists, in fact, take this metaphor to its ultimate logical conclusion. They believe we are really no more than machines and have only the illusion of free will and that the concept of ‘human rights’ is simply an invention of human beings.
Christians have a different view. We believe we are made in the image and likeness of God. This gives us an inherent dignity and it also gives us the gift of free will.
Inherent dignity
A machine, no matter how intelligent, would not be made by God, but by us. They would have no inherent rights or inherent dignity. But they would be made in our image and would therefore have human-like capabilities and we would surely have to give them certain human-like rights.
This discussion is, of course, highly premature because we are nowhere near developing machines as intelligent as those seen in Humans or in the recent science fiction movie, Ex Machina. We may never get there.
But if we do we will have to consider whether an intelligent, self-aware, rational machine should have rights or not.
In the meantime, we can use the possibility that we might one day invent such machines to prompt ethical discussions like this and to consider what actually makes us human and what actually gives us rights.