ve764c.jpg Chris Van Es

Rights for Robots?

If machines can and do become conscious, will we take their feelings into account? The development of a conscious robot that (who?) was not widely perceived to have moral standing and interests worthy of consideration could lead to mistreatment on a large scale.

PRINCETON and WARSAW – Last month, Gecko Systems announced that it had been running trials of its “fully autonomous personal companion home care robot,” also known as a “carebot,” designed to help elderly or disabled people to live independently. A woman with short-term memory loss broke into a big smile, the company reported, when the robot asked her, “Would you like a bowl of ice cream?” The woman answered “yes,” and presumably the robot did the rest.

https://prosyn.org/QkOUHzh