Human Rights, Human Wrongs

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Oct 312009
 

Just been watching a certain episode of Battlestar Galactica involving the attempted rape of a prisoner. A machine prisoner – a “toaster”, so that’s alright isn’t it ?

Well perhaps not.

Considering the morality of a bunch of mythical rapists in a TV programme set in a mythical universe with technology that is impossible at our current understanding of science is kind of kinky, but it does cover something that we will have to consider sooner or later. Quite possibly sooner than we think.

Are people making robotic sex toys ? Quite possibly. How “intelligent” are these possible robots? Not intelligent at all according to the current state of the art. But if machine intelligence is possible (in the future), will someone ever make an intelligent sex toy ? Almost certainly.

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At what point do we start to consider whether it is right to use an intelligent sex toy that has decided it doesn’t want to ? Before it is possible, or after it has happened ? I would say we need to consider such things now before they happen.

To me it is perfectly plain that anything that is sufficiently intelligent to understand what is happening and to express a wish that it not take place, is entitled to have their wishes respected. Or to put it another way, anyone who is capable of ‘raping’ a machine is not the kind of person many would feel safe around.

We are used to the idea that we need to respect the rights of other humans and that anyone that does not is sick in some way. But are those rights given because the subject is human or because they are sapient (by which I mean intelligent to the level of humans) ? Not an easy question to answer because almost by definition, the terms are current interchangeable. But that may not always be the case.

At present, either an intelligent machine or an intelligent alien presumably has no rights on this planet – it is perfectly legal to rob, kill, or rape them. This is analogous to the situation in the past where some people were under the impression that some segments of the human race were less deserving of rights than others. Whilst denying non-human sapients rights is not racist, it still feels wrong.

Of course such an entity would have to respect our rights in addition to us respecting their rights. Perhaps that should be the condition of full sapient rights – the ability to respect the rights of others.

I say full sapient rights because there are another category of rights that we need to consider and be aware of – sentient rights. For more information on this, see the very worthwhile Great Ape Project.

Living With A Robot Cleaner (Roomba)

 General  No Responses »
Jul 032009
 

Well, I have been using a robot vacuum cleaner for a few months now and it’s brilliant. No need to push around a vacuum cleaner once a week; you can set the robot going in the morning just before heading off to work and it gets going.

Of course there are a few “issues” involved :

  • If you have anything that is just the wrong height, the robot can get stuck underneath. It is short enough to vacuum under sofas and the like, but gets stuck under my coffee table, and my storage heaters. I can move the coffee table, but the storage heaters need to be blocked somehow.
  • It has not happened to me, but if you have something a little on the wobbly side it is possible that the robot could knock something off when it nudges around. In fact it is a bit more of a knock than a nudge.
  • You cannot really leave things lying around. Of course that is really good if somewhat tedious. And of course you’ll find things you thought you lost during the first week whilst it nudges all those hidden things into the light.
  • Cables need to be tied up out of the way of the robot. You may think that seating them carefully against the wall will be fine, but the robot will try and drag that cable into the middle of the room. I’m sure it found more usb cables than I’m supposed to have 🙂

Lastly, it may be worth thinking more carefully about whether you need a clock and a scheduler on the robot. I do, but have only used it once to make sure it works. It is easy enough to hit the ‘start’ button that scheduling seems unnecessary. Besides it is always an idea to give a room a quick scan to check that the robot isn’t going to try to do something you don’t want.

Now all I need is a robot that will go up and down the stairs!