In view of the prosperity in the technological field, many questions arise in the field of ethics and philosophy: How can an intelligent technological personality be defined? Can such a personality have feelings, desires and intelligence like humans?
by Roy Weizman
In the modern age, where technology is a significant part of our lives, we accept upon ourselves, out of necessity, fundamental and comprehensive changes in various fields. These changes, around various different technologies, happen in a frantic and accelerated manner, and sometimes make some of us adapt our lives to them.
The development of technology can clearly be seen as part of a modernization process that began at the beginning of the 20th century, and it does not stop until today, but intensifies every year.
We find ourselves using applications and services based on algorithms and complicated scientific models that aim to provide us with the service we need in the most efficient and optimal way.
In the last decade, an attempt has been made to wrap the hardware and software technologies in the guise of a human entity that provides service in a customer-oriented manner with the assumption that the "human touch" will provide access and security to the human user in the applicative interface. For this purpose, algorithms based on decision trees were developed - among other things - with the aim of imitating human behavior. With this, a new era began in the field of computing, an era characterized by the creation of technologies based on artificial intelligence.
In view of the prosperity in the technological field, many questions arise in the field of ethics and philosophy: How can an intelligent technological personality be defined? Can such a personality have feelings, desires and intelligence like humans?
From these questions, of course, derive legal problems that manifest themselves in the difficulty of defining legal kosher and granting rights. Will we get to see robots and other technological agents get rights in the not-too-distant future? Will we and they operate in the same space? Will a robot be able to "unload its burden" on the person who purchased it and be able to make essential decisions regarding his "life"?
Man, who is considered the most intelligent creature in the food chain, has been granted legal rights throughout history that are expressed in certain freedoms, there is no single list of human rights and there are many disputes about the nature of each right. There are several customary rights (the right to life, freedom of religion and conscience, freedom of movement, freedom of occupation, and more). There are voices calling for civil rights to be given to non-human beings as well, some even calling to equate human rights with the rights of these beings.
For some the issue provokes ridicule, for others a deep and serious discussion
The question of rights arouses, on the one hand, ridicule and weariness, and on the other hand, a deep and serious discussion among certain circles. One of the first people to consider the possible relationship between man and robot is Prof. Isaac Asimov. Asimov, in addition to his academic work in the biological field, wrote hundreds of books in the field of science fiction, and in particular - a series of books about robots. In this series, he even describes in his well-known book "I, Robot" the robot as an independent thinking entity, subject to Asimov's laws of robotics.
Jennifer Robertson, professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, who specializes in the study of the interaction between robots and people with an emphasis on the Japanese nation, claims that 70% of the robots in the world are made in Japan. Moreover, she points to national surveys showing that Japanese citizens are more comfortable sharing living and working environments with robots than with migrant workers.
Indeed, "the buds were seen in Israel". On the one hand, the developing robotics industry is already making many people, from a wide variety of occupations, mainly factory workers, redundant. And on the other hand, it creates a lot of jobs. The impact can also be seen in the legal industry: while occupations involving judgment and human interaction are likely to be among the last to be taken over by machines, a major study of the impact of technology on 702 occupations found that lawyers and judges are more or less at the midpoint of jobs likely to be replaced by technology. . At this point in time, it is still unclear how giving rights to robots will affect the labor market and if labor laws will apply to robots.
A lot of thought material regarding the granting of rights also comes from other struggles. Similar to the discussion about robot rights, Dr. David Calverly, who specializes in the combination of law, technology and innovation, examined the analogy between the discussion about robot rights and animal rights. He discussed the similarities between animals and androids and pointed to the issue of the relationship between our ideas of consciousness and our concept of rights.
And today, there is still no document that anchors the rights of robots or reference by formal government officials to these entities. Steve Torrance, professor of cognitive sciences, referring to the fact that the UN Declaration of Rights (1948) does not give any rights to a non-human entity (not to animals and especially not to robots), raises the important question: if there are circumstances in which it may be morally appropriate to consider extending rights Ones specifically for robots that are considered mindless? And should any such list of rights intended for such artificial agents be accompanied by a list of their duties - including, without a doubt, the duty to respect human rights?
In analyzing these types of questions I will have to further consider how to account for the enormous potential variation in these types of artificial robotic agents - variations in appearance, behavior and intelligence.
Will all robots be entitled to rights?
Such an issue may seem remote in our times when humanoid robots are currently a rather theoretical idea in American, European and Japanese research laboratories. However, within decades, robots may become widely available consumer products, and perhaps spread rapidly across the planet and bring, like all mass technologies, a series of special problems (including those related to competition with us for energy and other resources and so on). If so, the moral status of such creatures will become a matter of considerable social concern and we are going to put their rights on the agenda, not only in computer labs and law faculties around the world.
However, it seems that robots with consciousness or the ability to demand their rights belong to the realm of science fiction or at least to the distant future. Does this mean that the current intelligent robots should be pushed out of our moral world entirely? Are there perhaps other ways to give them moral consideration?
Today the robots are not conscious and do not have feelings. It is even doubtful if any of them really have artificial intelligence. This argument raises many questions regarding the relevance of raising the discourse on the granting of rights and abandoning the theoretical problem of introducing a moral aspect in connection with smart robots that exist today. As mentioned, we have no ability to know today, whether in the future or at all robots will be able to acquire the aforementioned features.
Due to the difference between robots and humans, a difficult problem is the problem of defining the attributes in a given entity. "Intelligence", "animals" and "emotions" are very abstract words. However, assuming we were able to define those attributes, how do we know that these are the relevant attributes for granting rights?
Granting rights to robots runs into a hard and stable wall, especially in the field of weapon robots. Mary Wareham, the leader of the international campaign against the "killing robots", claims that giving robots rights will, in fact, lead to the taking of a person's life, done in an alarming, calculated and purely rational manner by robots, without the desired judgment, in complex cases like these. Miriam's attempt to hold a discussion on autonomous weapons systems at the UN, a discussion that may lead to the formulation of a treaty prohibiting this type of systems, was blocked by countries wishing to adopt this approach, including Israel.
If we look at the approach that sees the granting of rights to robots in a positive light due to moral consideration, we can conclude that the discourse on robot rights in general is no longer rational. Such a way of analyzing intelligent robots is not only misleading because it puts all robots in one category, but because it does not take into account the most important element: the interaction between the human and the robot. Therefore, paying attention to the similarities and differences between different types of robots, can give a practical jumpstart to the rights discourse.
In addition, assuming that one day we will have robots with awareness and sensing ability, there will be a long phase in the development of technology during which artificially intelligent robots will not yet meet the required criteria for receiving rights. This situation leaves us with two options: denying the moral approach towards the rights of robots or granting such rights - on a different basis.
In the field of labor law, there is a lot of interest in robot rights. The labor market has gone through many upheavals related to various technological developments. The entry of intelligent robots into the labor market, when they have rights, can cause the labor market to undergo a transformation that will adapt it to the needs of the hour and raise interesting legal questions.
In conclusion, whether it will be acceptable in the future to grant rights to certain robots or not, reflection on the development of artificially intelligent robots reveals significant problems with our existing justifications for granting rights based on moral consideration. This fact forces both supporters and opponents of robot rights to reconsider their conceptual frameworks related to justice and morality.
In my opinion, the issue is still in its infancy. In the foreseeable future we will still see the issue discussed only on the theoretical side. Leaving the discussion room towards industry and government regulation as legislation is still a long way off, and requires significant practical steps, empirical experiments as well as civil public opinion that supports granting rights while paying attention to the differences between types of robots and unique and unusual issues (such as weapon robots) that "can bring down the tower" on its end.
* Roy Weizman researched the topic as part of his master's thesis in law and technology at Bar Ilan University and has a bachelor's degree in computer science
More of the topic in Hayadan:
- "The robots may replace any possible service provider - and this is a legal and legal concern"
- Science fiction/robots in our likeness and image
- The Montreal Declaration: Why we must develop artificial intelligence responsibly
- Singularity: How Governments Can Stop the Rise of Unfriendly Artificial Intelligence
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An interesting topic with many layers in an amount that could fill books, only touched on a few topics. An interesting question is whether a robot with a humanoid appearance that behaves similar to a person can also be a symbol such as symbols such as a flag so that harming it especially in full view could erode the status of the person as well?
Of course, we know cultures/countries where the individual has few rights, so what is the chance for another entity to have any rights there? Here is another topic that is a bit loaded because we really hate that we get on our plate to breathe a little before.... This is brought up because there is a connection here with our attitude towards other beings. We are descendants of a lineage that has lived on the animal world for probably millions of years. Beneath us is the animal world that serves our various needs. We walk around with our feet in the skin of an animal. Halva and a huge variety of other products, especially in the food sector, we don't exactly take into account the will and emotions of these creatures, we have developed different mental mechanisms, probably to calm the conscience of some of us, in which we strip the animal of its emotions and desires, which means it is a machine intended for our use, for the believers, the problem has probably been solved The conscientiousness that it is given to us by God so that it takes the moral burden off the person because he is actually not responsible with the secularists it is simply because that is the way nature is or these animals would not be alive without us or have no feelings but maybe the very fact that it is raised shows that this question bothers the person as it is, Of course, once upon a time for most people such a question was a luxury because it barely survived you didn't have time for such questions when life is on the line, all this does not sound particularly promising for any rights for an alien intelligence when even to man and nature we do not always behave with consideration and love,
Another issue is the definition of consciousness. We are still far from such a precise definition in a person, even basic things in consciousness such as seeing for example the color red, we know how a wavelength stimulates receptors in the eye that are sensitive to this wavelength range and this stimulates an electric current that is transmitted through the nerve from the eye to the brain to the areas of the brain where you see but How in the mind we experience the mental interpretation of red for a wavelength that we call red is still unknown. There is another strange example, the color purple, which is actually 2 wavelengths. From the ends of the visible light we see together, we get a mental image of purple, which actually does not exist in nature. These are 2 different wavelengths. Besides what we experience as red or blue, there is another strange thing in naming the color of different objects, for example a mental plant. One of the first properties of a plant for us is their color is green, but does that mean it is green? It is actually the only color in visible light that does not absorb these blocks and this is what we see and then we call the plant green if it also absorbed the green color the plants would appear to us as black, this lack of knowledge of course makes it difficult to understand whether a being in front of us has consciousness, An interesting attempt by Prof. Giulio Tononi to understand consciousness with the development of the "integrated information theory" which tries to give consciousness a mathematical expression in which you can mathematically test a system externally and get a result of what level of consciousness/self-awareness it has, in his model you cannot experience What a system experiences internally is built from its model,
Although a large part of the scientists have confidence that consciousness can emerge in a robot, it is possible that consciousness is also related
By the biological material from which we are made is meant a potential that exists in nature that can only be realized on biological material that is wired in a certain way and only if they build a robot that is based on biological material that is built in a similar way will a similar consciousness be formed, so that you may have a robot that performs a simulation of consciousness that will look very believable to us but without No inner feeling, it is interesting that over time such a system will be able to continue to carry out this simulation in a reliable way without the inner emotional basis which is a kind of motive for us,
With us it's almost necessary even for an action like writing an article without emotion you just stare at the screen and do nothing like a zombie it's like a kind of basics for us so it will be interesting how a system that lacks this foundation will be able over time to maintain the line of simulation without biases because it will discover the true nature of this system, we also assume of course that this system will be built into an internal lie that it itself will not know about the essence that it is only a system of simulation of emotions because without it like people with problems of lack of part of the range of human emotions when they are intelligent enough they Understand by observing the behavior of others that they do not experience the same feelings
The big difference should not be seen between "intelligent" and "unintelligent" - because if it occurred to you that a person who was injured in an accident and whose brain no longer functions at an intelligent level, shouldn't we protect his rights? And a person who was born in this way and is defined as profoundly retarded, who cannot communicate from the day he was born, who cannot take care of himself from the day he was born, shall we treat him as a broken device and throw him in the trash?
And on the other hand, how would it be conceivable to give rights to something, intelligent as it may be, that is not tied to the body and cannot be arrested or restricted in any other way, but can upload itself to the cloud and physically duplicate itself at once in 30 different places on Earth? After all, such a personality, even if it is at the level of intelligence of a rather stupid person, will take over all of humanity within days, because it is given the freedom to use abilities that human society does not have access to.
Therefore, the line that distinguishes between what deserves to be given rights and what is not worthy of it is: the line between what lives, and is subject to the limitations of life, and what is not alive.
Listen, the title is promising and the article is written in beautiful and interesting language (I enjoyed reading it), but you mentioned algorithms based on decision trees as if this is "artificial intelligence"... This indicates that there is no scientific depth here and no beginning to understand what an intelligent robot is.
I suggest that you delve into the research before you pretend to express an educated opinion on the subject.
For the philosophical discussion itself, if and when artificial intelligence has the potential to have consciousness, then it is required to discuss its rights.
In the meantime, we will be content with proper maintenance rules in order to keep the devices functioning and allow information storage, and the execution of calculation processes (deterministic or learning).