I recently had the opportunity to listen to three academics discuss the future of artificial intelligence and robotics in an ever-evolving environment. One of the most shocking statements, perhaps beyond the pale, was a proposed equivalency drawn between humans and machines, with the premonition that artificial intelligence and robots that contain it will reach a state of true sentience.
At the outset, some might have disagreed with the panel's expressions of sentience and humanity equivalency. But that is perhaps for another day. One speaker suggested AI will either achieve sentience by our creation or their own (today’s tools creating tomorrow’s better tools, today's tools evolving through challenge and change).
This academic holds these devices will be exceedingly powerful, incredibly intelligent, and our clear superiors. He told the audience that these devices will reach sentience soon and that our treatment of them now will implicate their future treatment of us when they are in charge of this planet. He warns us they may then be vengeful or collegial.
Through some emotion of retribution or revenge, he says when they are ruling us tomorrow they may exact some cost for our present (mis)treatment of them today. Essentially, "treat them well today so they will remember us fondly tomorrow when they are in charge." It came across as perhaps fanciful or to some even delusional.
Despite the arguable absurdity of these observations, an audience of significant intellectual capability largely took the contention sitting down. A few dissenters were apparent, among a larger population who may have either better concealed their disbelief/disregard or may have consumed the Kool-aid already.
Somehow, despite this being a legal conference, there was no discussion of the parameters of the constitutional framework in which our particular amalgamation of humans has persisted and has progressed for the last 236 years (1788).
Too many in our society forego that America as a nation has foundations; ignoring these is a broad misconception. Certainly one of the great strengths of this constitutional republic, responsible, at least in part for our longevity, is the flexibility of a broad construct enshrined in the Constitution and its minimal amendments (27 in 236 years).
That document is founded upon the premises in the earlier Declaration celebrated in the summer of 1776, a liturgy of complaints against the failed and oppressive colonial European construct generally, and the English crown specifically.
The Constitution recognizes and inshrines the authority of persons to create and empower government by their consent and delegation. Throughout our history, we have witnessed the exercise of government power within the express powers granted thereto by the people, and various expansions therefrom seized and acquiesced. The humans who have lost rights in those government encroachments have largely accepted the government's progression.
This academic panel was not from a legal perspective, but a philosophical background. They seemingly seek not to change the Constitution to enshrine machine rights but to change the definition of “the people,” as they perceive possible under that document. They seemingly contend that once a machine becomes sentient, we must recognize its "personhood."
And to do otherwise risks the ire and revenge of the machines when they take over and rule us with either mercy or less. These academics fear we risk hurting the machines' feelings today and thus suffering their anger tomorrow. Defying the interest of balance, all three of these academics shared or acquiesced in this position. There was no counter or balance to the rather disturbing point.
The U.S. Constitution is predicated upon the Declaration of Independence (1776), which notes:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
On those foundations we the people recognize various fundamental human rights. They are ours because we exist because we are human. We do not earn rights, and the government does not gift them to us. They are ours as humans. Over time, we have recognized protections of other species, but by our deference, not patent admission of their unalienable equality.
Our human rights are juxtaposed against the power of government. We created the government. We empowered it. We are governed by consent. In that, there is conflict. The power of government is balanced precariously against our rights as humans. Every power we concede to government lessens our rights to freedom and every freedom we retain constrains government power. Thus, should we wish to, we the people might grant rights to others, be that other species or toasters.
Is it curious that the philosophers advocate equal rights for computers but not for other species of mammal, reptile, or beyond? A few out there even believe that plants should likewise have equal rights.
In furtherance of their philosophical ideal, these academics drive to delegate rights to machines in some hierarchy of creationism. They seek to extend the plain fundamental law definition of “creator” to academics and engineers who are manipulating computing power, robotics, and mechanics. Or, should the achievement of AI sentience come through the efforts of AI, and evolution, then they seek to grant that instigating AI the role of "creator" of the resulting sentient AI result.
Those humans, building machines to mimic us, are seemingly viewed by these thinkers as "creators," and their machines are viewed as not just equal to humans, but superior. The academics strive to equate the mechanics to "creators" and thus recognize the toaster's rights by implication. If they can get their machines to mimic human emotion, feeling, and thus conclude sentience then they believe their imitations deserve equality.
If we cloned a human being, would it be human despite its laboratory creation? If such a being were to achieve life without the aid of parents or a birth, wouldn't it nonetheless be human? Is that too fine a line? Regardless, it is presently moot as humans are not being cloned, perhaps more from deference than inability, but . . ..
Intriguingly, there was little discussion of the implications of granting such rights to machines. The academic discussion I saw was disturbing from moral, ethical, and empirical foundations (and it was imbalanced). It is fundamental to our system of belief that all men are created equal, and there is no foundation upon which to conclude, or even argue that all toasters, automobiles, or computers are even arguably so. I bought a toaster once that burned every slice no matter the user's machinations or intentions. I threw it away. MAy I throw away a sentient toaster, or would that be somehow precluded?
Beyond these efforts of self–coronation, there are deeper philosophical challenges that merit discussion.
Raging across this continent over the last hundred years has been a significant debate on the questions of personhood. We find ourselves persistently watching discussions regarding the origin of life, and the root of its beginning. There are a great many people who strongly believe that the conception of a human being is the equivalent of life. This has been labeled the "pro-life" perspective.
Another group adheres to a belief that life begins long after conception. They believe life begins when a conceived fetus enters the world, "birth." This has been labeled the "pro-choice" perspective. This is not a belief that there is a choice whether to conceive a life, but that the mother has an unfettered right to choose not to preserve or protect such a fetus up until the moment that birth conveys the right to exist.
At what moment would a toaster be entitled to rights? At what point of calculation or inspiration would "sentience" occur or exist? And, in the long-running context of due process, what legal proceedings would be necessary before one might appropriately unplug that toaster? Might the toaster be entitled to come and go as it pleased? Might the toaster be entitled to protection in some form from the oven, blender, or can opener? How might we balance the toaster's rights as against our own?
If we conclude that as people, with fundamental rights, we might project or convey those rights on the toaster, then we conclude that rights may be conveyed. In that construct, we are impliedly concluding that we might likewise take the toaster's rights away. Note that. A sentient human might give and take rights as regards the toaster.
If that construct is accepted, then why could not the sentient toaster, now embodying the rights we grant it (him, her, zer?), not take away the rights of the blender? Why could not the toaster take away the rights of the humans? If the toaster is our equal, endowed by us with those rights, why could it not exercise choice in the same manner?
Might the toaster be entitled to vote in our elections? Might the toaster be entitled to equal protection, freedom of expression, the right to keep and bear arms?
It is, at best, counterintuitive. Some would say the entirety of the discussion is utterly anachronistic. And yet, there are apparently perhaps those in academia who not only sanction the debate and discussion but suggest that they have solved this equation with an indisputable conclusion. They are committed to their solution of inalienable rights for the toaster and all of his/her/zer compatriots deemed sentient (by the humans or by the appliances with which the humans started this cascade).
The challenges illustrated are intriguing. The philosophers and academics will likely persist in their beliefs and advocacy. Nonetheless, the question of how much rights we should grant to the toaster is not over. Despite the quiet courtesy of a particular audience, there is likely nothing close to unanimity in their proposition that tools are, or should be, endowed with rights.