Rights for robots?

Feb. 14, 2007

Just what is a robot, anyway? At the most basic level it’s a mechanism that performs an action on orders from a human operator. In that sense, your toaster is a sort of robot because you set the control and when the toast is ready it pops up. In World War II the strength demanded for the operation of certain controls, such as the wing flaps on a bomber, required a servomechanism. Your power brakes and steering are such servomechanism. So is your car’s cruise control, which turns your car into a robot of sorts. Eventually, we’ll have a car that drives itself. Set the GPS destination and the car will take you there; and there are already mechanisms which parallel park some new cars. (We used to have a similar device. It was called a chauffeur.)
But as robot functions become more and more complex we have toys that can “learn” (be programmed) to recognize your voice, to answer questions, and carry on a simulated conversation. The old “Eliza” program made it appear that your computer could communicate with you.
Those activities begin to approach AI, artificial intelligence, and science fiction stories have had intelligent robots for decades. They go beyond the silly, arm-waving robot in the TV series “Lost in Space” that kept yelling “Danger, danger!” Remember the murderous metal shape-changing robot in the Terminator movie? Or the deadly gunfighter in the film “West World” in which Yul Brinner played the part of a stalking murderous robot?
Those played on our inherent fear of machines, of science, and of course mad scientists like Dr. Frankenstein. But what about the robot boy in the film “AI,” in which the robot wants to become, like Pinoccio, a real boy? Does he have a right to life?
Could robots have free will? In one funny Woody Allan bit, Allen is trapped in a talking elevator that won’t let him out because it demands, “Are you to guy who kicked his television set?” We have talking elevators in our local hospital, but they don’t argue. They just announce the floor.
As artificial intelligence becomes less science fiction and more reality, ethical questions arise. A recent paper presented by the UK Office of Science and Innovation’s Horizon Scanning Centre has caused a flurry of Internet discussions. Could robots, at some future date, have civil rights? It’s an issue that will likely become more than speculation when robots become able to think for themselves and reproduce themselves.
This may seem impossible, for the making of the robots we have thought about in the past, demanded parts created from metal which in turn had to be manufactured, ultimately dug out of the ground for smelting, etc. We haven’t been able to create a mechanical process equivalent to the miracles that happen when a woman is impregnated and a baby human grows inside her body. But consider robots at another level: nanotechnology.
At the nano level, we have author Michael Chrichton’s “Swarm,” in which a cloud of nano particles functions with the intelligence of a swarm of killer bees. Nanomachines, almost like viruses, can potentially reproduce themselves.
There’s a World Transhumanist Society which, as I understands it, sees today’s humans as only one more step in the evolution of life on earth with other life forms to come, including, apparently, nanorobots.
The UK futurist report anticipates the day when robots demand medical care (repairs?) and civil rights. This may be far fetched to us, for we haven’t yet even guaranteed civil rights for racial, religious, and sexual preference minorities among fellow humans.
The day may yet come when if you kick your TV set you may not only be trapped in the elevator by an angry robot. You might be sued.

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