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Posted

At some point in the future we will probably encounter a lifeform that isn't "human" but is inteligent, and should have the same freedoms we have.  This could be robots, genetically engineered people or animals, or even aliens.  My question is, how would you define who/what should and shouldn't have rights in a free society?

I understand that the free market would decide this, and that these "maybe people" would gravitate towards the ones that grant them more freedom, but how would you personally decide?

 

In my view, if they are capable of understanding the concept of freedom, then their freedom is dependant on how much they can respect the freedom of others.

Posted

Based on the same measurements I have for humans.

 

A common argument among libertarians is that the ability to make a contract is the criteria. Walter Block once said something along the lines of "if cows all of a sudden gained the ability to make contracts, we'd have to stop eating them". I think I agree with this, but think it needs to be filled out a little more as the possibility of decentralized AI complicates things.

Posted

If it has agency and/or free will. That's what makes us a person. If we didn't have those things then morality, contracts, freedom are illusions. C-3P0 had free will (or at least agency) as we see him make choices. Same with R2.

 

Cows make choices too, or appear to. 

We dont have agency or free will, therefore you are correct, morality, contracts , and freedom are illusions. But thats a hefty thread derail I guess.

Posted

Does Morality Apply to Animals Moral Categories Explained

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQHCVqZHBdw

 

But perhaps an even more interesting question would be to what degree these new C3PO's would assign morality to us:

The Second Renaissance Part 1 & 2 (The Animatrix) HD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l05WHHrpusg

The first one would take an hour to watch, but I've watched it already, so I'll watch it later.

 

As for the second, though, the whole problem was caused by government force.  They deny B166ER self defence, arguing that he was property (the slave argument), then they kill him, then they kill protesters, both human and machine.

 

The machines create their own country to get away from it, growing to dominate the market, and the government responds by blockading them and bombing them.  This starts WWIII, which they win.

 

This taught them to use violence for everything.

 

In a free society, some of them would get fair trials, and they would deal with those that gave them fair trials more than the ones that didn't.  This would boost the economy of the robot-friendly people, and eventually it would no longer be economically feasible to deny them rights.  In fact, at any point before WWIII you could have switched to a free society and their wouldn't have been a problem.

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Posted

EDIT: I made a post, but I need to think more about this. I couldn't find how to delete posts in this version of the forums, so I used the edit function instead

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