October 16, 2007
People Will Marry Ducks!
About 39 years ago, in 1969, riots broke out here in New York over the legal persecution of gay and transgender people. Basically, it was illegal for a man to wear women's clothing or for two men to dance with one another and all sorts of other things. After those riots the gay rights movement exploded and we've been fighting for our right to do with our person as we please with other consenting adults.
Today, gay people are still not allowed to be married in most countries and most states of America. In fact, there are a significant number of states that actually forbid same-sex marriage in their constitutions.
There are people in the mainstream of politics who actually make remarks about how gay marriage will herald the end of civilization and it marks a point on the slippery slope to people marrying ducks.
I've commented on duck marriage before: here, here, here, and here.
Basically, my stance is that ducks cannot enter into contracts, so ducks cannot get married to anyone or anything, least of all a human, but this concept seems a distant echo of common sense in today's world and at the risk of adding to that silly Bill O'Reilly's point, I'm going to comment a news item that I saw the other day but turned up again on CNN this morning.
ZDNet: Will you one day marry a robot?
Now, if the marriage of two men is an unholy union that will call forth the various horsemen of the apocalypse, I don't dare try to visualize what will happen when people start trying to marry their vibrators.
Frankly, and I don't know what tribulations will rain down on man as a result of this, I would rather see people marrying ducks.
Chimpanzees. It'd probably rain chimpanzees.
Ok, but I return to my original point: robots don't have rights and therefore cannot marry anyone, least of all people.
I realize that this researcher was likely just trying to present a compelling vision of the future 50 years ahead and he didn't actually mean that there will be legal provisions for marrying machines. There are all kinds of people out there; I'm sure someone is already in love with their vibrator and would LIKE to marry it, but thankfully their lobby in Washington is not influential enough to introduce any legislation worthy of comment.
We're venturing now into the realm of science fiction, so I should predicate my comments by saying that I'm talking about purely mechanical beings and not biomechanical or cybernetic beings.
The concept of rights applies to rational animals only. Human beings are the only creatures we know of that possess the sort of consciousness that requires the protection of the conditions we call rights, which exist as conditions between rational animals only.
These conditions are particular to human beings because we are animals, meaning we have biological needs and a unique, finite existence and our survival as human beings requires the exercise of our faculty of reason.
Other animals, like dogs, ducks, and chimps, do not have rights because although they share with us biological needs and the fact that they die, they do not share a rational faculty.
Robots are the opposite -- pending the advent of sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence. They may share a rational faculty, but they do not have biological needs, specifically, they cannot die.
You can turn a robot off and turn it back on at any time. Even if it somehow could not be turned off and back on, it would be possible to recreate a robot's "consciousness" if it were damaged. In effect, robots cannot die and as a result, it has no need for a right to life, liberty, or property.
(I suppose you could project a robot in this future scenario which cannot be turned off, recreated, or have its consciousness transferred to another mechanical shell and in those cases, I might be willing to amend these statements.)
I will also admit that the realm of philosophy dealing with the ethical considerations of robots is probably not well explored and I'm not prepared to present a thesis on the matter.
And regardless of the advance of technology in the next 50 years, homosexuals have been around almost since the origin of the X and Y chromosomes. It took us a long time to pitch a fit about being oppressed and it's been nearly 40 years and we're still along way from having our relationships legally recognized as an extension of our property rights.
I have my doubts that people are going to rush to pass laws allowing people to marry robots the next 50 years.
Today, gay people are still not allowed to be married in most countries and most states of America. In fact, there are a significant number of states that actually forbid same-sex marriage in their constitutions.
There are people in the mainstream of politics who actually make remarks about how gay marriage will herald the end of civilization and it marks a point on the slippery slope to people marrying ducks.
I've commented on duck marriage before: here, here, here, and here.
Basically, my stance is that ducks cannot enter into contracts, so ducks cannot get married to anyone or anything, least of all a human, but this concept seems a distant echo of common sense in today's world and at the risk of adding to that silly Bill O'Reilly's point, I'm going to comment a news item that I saw the other day but turned up again on CNN this morning.
ZDNet: Will you one day marry a robot?
David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher and international chess master, defended yesterday his Ph.D. thesis at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. The name of his thesis is “Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners” and the University announced it under the name “Love and Sex with Robots.” Levy says that trends in robotics and artificial intelligence will, ‘within a few decades, result in robots that are so humanlike in their appearance and functionality, in their personality, and in their expression of emotions, that many people will be falling in love with them, having sex with them, and even marrying them.’ Will it really happen? Are you ready for this?He actually predicts that by 2050, robots will be so advanced that people will develop feelings for robots and then we're going to marry them.
Now, if the marriage of two men is an unholy union that will call forth the various horsemen of the apocalypse, I don't dare try to visualize what will happen when people start trying to marry their vibrators.
Frankly, and I don't know what tribulations will rain down on man as a result of this, I would rather see people marrying ducks.
Chimpanzees. It'd probably rain chimpanzees.
Ok, but I return to my original point: robots don't have rights and therefore cannot marry anyone, least of all people.
I realize that this researcher was likely just trying to present a compelling vision of the future 50 years ahead and he didn't actually mean that there will be legal provisions for marrying machines. There are all kinds of people out there; I'm sure someone is already in love with their vibrator and would LIKE to marry it, but thankfully their lobby in Washington is not influential enough to introduce any legislation worthy of comment.
We're venturing now into the realm of science fiction, so I should predicate my comments by saying that I'm talking about purely mechanical beings and not biomechanical or cybernetic beings.
The concept of rights applies to rational animals only. Human beings are the only creatures we know of that possess the sort of consciousness that requires the protection of the conditions we call rights, which exist as conditions between rational animals only.
These conditions are particular to human beings because we are animals, meaning we have biological needs and a unique, finite existence and our survival as human beings requires the exercise of our faculty of reason.
Other animals, like dogs, ducks, and chimps, do not have rights because although they share with us biological needs and the fact that they die, they do not share a rational faculty.
Robots are the opposite -- pending the advent of sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence. They may share a rational faculty, but they do not have biological needs, specifically, they cannot die.
You can turn a robot off and turn it back on at any time. Even if it somehow could not be turned off and back on, it would be possible to recreate a robot's "consciousness" if it were damaged. In effect, robots cannot die and as a result, it has no need for a right to life, liberty, or property.
(I suppose you could project a robot in this future scenario which cannot be turned off, recreated, or have its consciousness transferred to another mechanical shell and in those cases, I might be willing to amend these statements.)
I will also admit that the realm of philosophy dealing with the ethical considerations of robots is probably not well explored and I'm not prepared to present a thesis on the matter.
And regardless of the advance of technology in the next 50 years, homosexuals have been around almost since the origin of the X and Y chromosomes. It took us a long time to pitch a fit about being oppressed and it's been nearly 40 years and we're still along way from having our relationships legally recognized as an extension of our property rights.
I have my doubts that people are going to rush to pass laws allowing people to marry robots the next 50 years.
Posted by: Flibbertigibbet at
09:08 AM
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Category: In the News
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1
It's an interesting question. Certainly I agree that as phrased, people will want to marry robots by 2050. People have always done crazy stuff. Whether we'll have robots mentally equivalent to humans by then is hard to say, but it will happen sooner or later; there's nothing intrinsically impossible about it.
But when you say:
It comes down to what you consider the essence of being human, and on that I pretty much take the strict behaviourist view. You can't know what's going on inside another person's mind, so you have to go by what they do and say. If a robot can understand the concepts of love and marriage, if it expresses the emotion and the desire, then by all means let it get married.
But not to a duck. That's just icky.
But when you say:
In effect, robots cannot die and as a result, it has no need for a right to life, liberty, or property.I have to disagree. I think that anything that can understand those concepts has a right to them. Right now that's just humans, but that's going to change one way or another. If a human mind could be backed up - again, immensely difficult but not intrinsically impossible - would that mean that humans would no longer need those rights?
It comes down to what you consider the essence of being human, and on that I pretty much take the strict behaviourist view. You can't know what's going on inside another person's mind, so you have to go by what they do and say. If a robot can understand the concepts of love and marriage, if it expresses the emotion and the desire, then by all means let it get married.
But not to a duck. That's just icky.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 18, 2007 10:41 AM (PiXy!)
2
I made several qualifying remarks after that statement.
The concept of "rights" as we mean them apply to human beings because human beings are both rational and living things that can die.
Rights are conditions, things that have to be in order for human beings to survive as human beings.
Assuming artificial intelligence reaches a point where a robot has consciousness comparable to that of a human, we'd be faced with a challenging question: what is the ethical standard of a rational automaton -- as opposed to that of a rational animal.
We have the answer for rational animals. The ultimate goal and standard of good is that which supports his life.
But robots do not share the same constraints of existence that apply to rational animals.
I should have been more clear in my statement. Robots with human-like consciousnesses MAY have rights to life, liberty, and property, but we cannot assume that based on their consciousness alone because those rights also stem from animals' biological existence.
The concept of "rights" as we mean them apply to human beings because human beings are both rational and living things that can die.
Rights are conditions, things that have to be in order for human beings to survive as human beings.
Assuming artificial intelligence reaches a point where a robot has consciousness comparable to that of a human, we'd be faced with a challenging question: what is the ethical standard of a rational automaton -- as opposed to that of a rational animal.
We have the answer for rational animals. The ultimate goal and standard of good is that which supports his life.
But robots do not share the same constraints of existence that apply to rational animals.
I should have been more clear in my statement. Robots with human-like consciousnesses MAY have rights to life, liberty, and property, but we cannot assume that based on their consciousness alone because those rights also stem from animals' biological existence.
Posted by: Flibbertigibbet at October 18, 2007 11:07 PM (ru7wW)
3
I was going to comment on this thread, but my comments got so long that I had to move them to my own blog. If you're interested, you can read my remarks of obscene length here.
~Q
~Q
Posted by: Qwertz at October 19, 2007 09:49 PM (SlU3W)
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