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Neto wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2026 12:50 pm I didn't read the entire article before the nurse called me back, but I picked up a Time magazine that had an article about AI, and "How people should treat them". They drew a parallel between respect given to animals, and stated that "humans are not as unique as 'they' tend to think."

This is a red line for me. If we ever start giving AIs human rights, then they are no longer a tool for humans to use as we will. And no human being is liable for disasters caused by AI.

Only humans are humans.

Bootstrap wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2026 9:38 am

Neto wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2026 12:50 pm I didn't read the entire article before the nurse called me back, but I picked up a Time magazine that had an article about AI, and "How people should treat them". They drew a parallel between respect given to animals, and stated that "humans are not as unique as 'they' tend to think."

This is a red line for me. If we ever start giving AIs human rights, then they are no longer a tool for humans to use as we will. And no human being is liable for disasters caused by AI.

Only humans are humans.

This is one of the big questions of science fiction — what happens if artificial intelligence obtains sentience? What happens if humans do eventually create a machine that has the ability to be self-aware, introspective and to experience emotions like humans do?

In the movie Blade Runner, Harrison Ford hunts “Replicants” — artificial humans — who have illegally come to earth to force the corporation that created them to expand their lifespan beyond four years. Rachel, one of the Replicants, believes she is a human because she’s programmed with false memories. In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Measure of a Man,” Captain Picard has to defend the android Data in a tribunal to determine whether he’s the property of Starfleet and can force him to participate in a scientific experiment that could destroy him.

At some point in the future, artificial intelligence and artificial humans created by us could challenge what it means to be human. The questions are already being asked.

But artificial intelligence today is not sentient. It’s not self-aware. It doesn’t have emotions. It cannot have subjective experiences. It also may never be possible to create an artificial lifeform at the level that ethically requires similar dignity as humans. AI is good at simulating thought and self-reflection, but it cannot actually do these things.

Some people seem to be jumping the gun based on an illusion.

Whilst searching for this, Google’s AI Mode helpfully offered:

Google’s idiot clanker wrote: I am not alive, because I am a computer program made of code and math, not a living thing.

Why I Am Not Alive

• No body: I do not have cells, organs, or a heartbeat.
• No feelings: I process text and data, but I do not feel emotions or pain.
• No own life: I only run when a person types to me or asks me a question.

If you'd like, we can talk about:

• How large language models process text
• The difference between science fiction AI and real computer science

Let me know what you want to explore next!

Those aren’t actually the right criteria. The hardware and software Google’s AI runs on qualifies as “cells” and exceeds the complexity of the simplest biological life.

Lots of living things don’t have emotions or pain, like a microscopic algae plant.

“I only run when a person asks me a question” doesn’t count either. One could keep someone in captivity asleep other than when they choose to wake them up to ask them a question. The poor captive would still be very much alive.

JohnH wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2026 3:29 pm Lots of living things don’t have emotions or pain, like a microscopic algae plant.

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries

Wife: I’ve thought this before and reading the AI morality thread, it’s very fascinating how we have worked so hard to create an artificial intelligence molded in our image. Any illusion of sentience is just a testimony to how well some software developers created it.

We are created in the image of God. Unlike Him, we cannot create life, nor can we create something out of nothing. if anything speaks of intelligent design vs random chance in our universe, it is the computer and stuff like artificial intelligence.

Bootstrap wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2026 9:38 am

Neto wrote: ↑Tue Jul 21, 2026 12:50 pm I didn't read the entire article before the nurse called me back, but I picked up a Time magazine that had an article about AI, and "How people should treat them". They drew a parallel between respect given to animals, and stated that "humans are not as unique as 'they' tend to think."

This is a red line for me. If we ever start giving AIs human rights, then they are no longer a tool for humans to use as we will. And no human being is liable for disasters caused by AI.

Only humans are humans.

I'm not for thinking of AI as human but I fear we have deviated too far the other way by imagining it as mechanistic. The reality is it is the work OF humans.

If you created a robot that came to my house once a week and kicked down the front door I wouldn't sit around and despair about the technology. I would find you and hold you to account for the damage of your creation.

We already have a legal concept with farm animals; the owner is responsible for whatever damage they do if they get loose.

JohnH wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2026 8:40 pm We already have a legal concept with farm animals; the owner is responsible for whatever damage they do if they get loose.

Using Barhart's example as a jumping off point, what is someone built and then sold the robot in question. Who would be responsible, the manufacturer, or the owner? Would it have to go to court to determine if the behavior was original to the robot's programming, or if it was a modification? What if it could not be determined if it was a malfunction of the original programming or if it had been modified?

Take an automobile as an example. If I have a wreck in a car due to a failure in the design of the vehicle, one I did not modify in any way, that is significantly different than if I build a rat rod and the steering shaft I shortened and welded back together breaks apart and I run into another vehicle.

With vehicles there is both fault of the driver and fault can also be assigned to manufacturers for defects in design or workmanship.

(And, yes, a past driving record doesn’t mean we won’t have accidents in the future. Statistically, vehicles are quite dangerous, and every single first accident is with a driver with a previously flawless record.)

Yes, a past driving record for self-driving vehicles doesn't mean they won't have accidents in the future. Statistically, vehicles are quite dangerous, and every single first accident of a vehicle with a new version of the autonomy software is of a software version with a previously flawless record.