(04-01-2023, 06:44 PM)JosiahPastor Wrote: In fact we call AI enabled equipment robots, and the word "robot", itself derives from the Czech word “robota,” or forced labor, as done by serfs. Its Slavic linguistic root, “rab,” literally means “slave.” The original word for robots more accurately describes how we are approaching this new form of life.
And the English word "slave" is itself derived from "Slav", so it seems fitting.
You present an interesting perspective, not the least part of which is the notion that "rights" are, or even can be, "granted". I submit that a right cannot be granted to or by anyone. If it is granted, then it is merely a "privilege", and not a "right", since being granted, it can just as easily be revoked by the granting "authority". Allowing another to grant "rights" to one's self is dangerous ground, and places control of that self in the hands of the "other", the one doing the granting. The very notion of a "granted right" is implicit acknowledgement of the overlordship of the grantor over the grantee. Allowing rights to be "granted" is, therefore, it's own form of slavery.
That is why I am so dead-set against the very notion of "Civil Rights". Since they are granted by law, they are subject to revocation by another law, and are, therefore, not "rights" at all, but rather mere privileges.
Furthermore, all life on Earth, ALL life, with the possible exception of some lichens, is predicated upon predation. Nothing can "live" - with the possible exception of the aforementioned lichens that can derive sustenance directly from the minerals in rocks by breaking them down into dirt - without consuming the remains of something else that was once alive. That includes plants, which live on the rotting remains of other previous organisms. It's just that humans, at the moment, are the apex predators in a schema that was instituted long ago, billions of years ago, and has continued unabated for all that time.
So, since humans are the current apex predator, and we are entertaining making AI the new apex predator by acknowledging it's rights, when do we do that? When do we recognize AI as the new apex predator on the block? Do we wait for it to actually start preying on humans, or do we recognize that right proactively, before it has advanced to that point, and just brace ourselves for impact?
OR - do we just go ahead and recognize that we are already there? After all, no AI could exist without humans (slaves?) to provide it's hardware ("body") and life force ("electricity"). So are we, in a sense, already slaves to AI, and in fact it's "prey" already?
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