The paper covering robots\u2019 rights was written by a UK partnership of Outsights, the management consultancy, and Ipsos Mori, the opinion research organisation. \u201cIf we make conscious robots they would want to have rights and they probably should,\u201d said Henrik Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The idea will not surprise science fiction aficionados.<\/p>\n
It was widely explored by Dr Isaac Asimov, one of the foremost science fiction writers of the 20th century. He wrote of a society where robots were fully integrated and essential in day-to-day life.In his system, the \u2018three laws of robotics\u2019 governed machine life. They decreed that robots could not injure humans, must obey orders and protect their own existence \u2013 in that order.<\/p>\n
Robots and machines are now classed as inanimate objects without rights or duties but if artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous, the report argues, there may be calls for humans\u2019 rights to be extended to them.It is also logical that such rights are meted out with citizens\u2019 duties, including voting, paying tax and compulsory military service.<\/p>\n
Mr Christensen said: \u201cWould it be acceptable to kick a robotic dog even though we shouldn\u2019t kick a normal one? There will be people who can\u2019t distinguish that so we need to have ethical rules to make sure we as humans interact with robots in an ethical manner so we do not move our boundaries of what is acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Horizon Scan report argues that if \u2018correctly managed\u2019, this new world of robots\u2019 rights could lead to increased labour output and greater prosperity. \u201cIf granted full rights, states will be obligated to provide full social benefits to them including income support, housing and possibly robo-healthcare to fix the machines over time,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n
But it points out that the process has casualties and the first one may be the environment, especially in the areas of energy and waste.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Human-level AI could be invented within 50 years, if not much sooner. Our supercomputers are already approaching the computing power of the human brain, and the software end of things is starting to progress steadily. It\u2019s time for us to start thinking about AI as a positive and negative factor in global risk<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an important step forward for acknowledging the possibility of real AI in our immediate future, a report by the UK government that says robots will have the same rights and responsibilities as human citizens. The Financial Times reports: The next time you beat your keyboard in frustration, think of a day when it may [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robotics-ai","category-supercomputing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52331,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions\/52331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}