Are Robots Considered Humans?

[Qop 0]

Wait a second, I have to rethink this.

 

The question is:

 

"Are robots considered humans?"

 

The answer is: No. Plain simple No. Why not? Human beings are made out of flesh, robots aren't, human beings have blood in their vains, robots don't have blood, humans have a brain, robots don't, etc.

 

The question we are debating here should be:

 

"Are robots considered human?"

 

A small difference, but with a MAJOR consequence.

[DingDong1405241487 0]

From what I remember from biology class humans are *person* sapiens and for a robot to be considered in the same species it would have to be able to reproduce with humans and have viable offspring that can also repoduce themselves. Example being a horse mated with a donkey produce a mule, the mule doesn't belong to either species horse or donkey and the mule is infertile, not realy making it a species of its own, but an evolutionarly short lived hybrid.

[spistols678 0]

I have always pondered this question, and after seeing the movie I robot I started to think to myself, if we were playing another form of god. But to tell you the truth I'm still not sure.

 

Being a person means you have rights, and the government is obligated to defend those rights. But with the rise of artificial intelligence, we are facing new questions about what it takes to constitute a person. In the movie âI Robotâ, was Sonny considered to be a person? When he committed the murder, there was a lot of questioning on whether he, as a machine should be charged or punished. Would it make sense to punish non living material like Sonny? I donât really think so.

 

Sometime in the future computer programmers may be able to develop a robot that behaves just like a person, like Sonny. Sonny behaved just like a person but does that mean he is a person? If so, should they have given him the moral right of self-determination, and not have used him merely to serve mankind? What if it were possible for man to create a human-like machine or robot with the same capacity and abilities and we? A machine that could think on its own and make choices, without any human interference. A robot that could learn things when taught, rather then have the software downloaded or installed. By our knowledge, all a computer can do, is represent the knowledge acquired by the programmer. It can only do what a programmer tells it to do. In other words, it cannot learn, therefore it isn't intelligent. Perhaps in the future machines will develop their own independent level of intelligence with an advanced evolution in technology.

In my opinion, the characteristics of personhood, is to be human and to be living. To be living means to be complex, organized, and made of organic molecules. As living humans we acquire and process materials and energy. We are homeostasis (meaning: staying the same). We grow and response to environmental stimuli. We also reproduce using deoxyribonucleic acids (DNA). Robots, at least as far as I know, do meet a lot of these requirements. They are extremely complex and organized, they process energy, they stay the same, and they respond to their environment. But they are not made of organic molecules, they don't grow, and they don't reproduce using DNA. An organism has to meet all the above requirements to be alive. Sonny could not meet these requirements, therefore he is not alive. Therefore he fails the dictionary definition of a person as a living being.

If we made robots that were life like and able to die like people, they wouldn't be as useful. One of the reasons for making robots is to make helpers who are more durable than humans. But does a robot need to be alive to be a person? There are other definitions to consider before making an assumption. We don't give people rights because they are alive. If that were so, we would give trees and flowers rights. What is the fundamental difference between a flower and a person? A person can think and feel. He is aware of his existence and his experience. He is intelligent. In our experience so far things which are intelligent are always alive. Could it be possible to break this rule? Could a non-living thing, however well programmed, ever have the qualities of self-awareness, intelligence and consciousness?

 

While trying to classify robots into the different categories of whether they could be considered people or not only left me confused and with more questions then I started with. I do not believe that a machine like Sonny deserves the rights we associate with personhood. Just because it is materialistic does not mean it should be treated the same way as people are treated. The answer still remains unclear for me because I cannot be completely sure that my opinion is correct. After all, it is only an opinion. What do you think?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

humans are living things, im taking biology class and all living things need living cells

 

robots dont have cells so they arent humans

[qwijibow 0]

Are Robots Considered Humans?

To put it simply... the definition of wether 2 different animals are the same species is... if they are oppoosite sex, and they can mate to produce a fertile offspring, then they are the same species... so tothe question.. No..

humans are living things, im taking biology class and all living things need living cells

Living is a very blury term.

A single celled organism is nothing but a very cleverly designed chemical reaction.
it can seek out more chemicals from its environment to refuel, nd continue its own chemical reactions, and build a copy of itself.

a computer virus seeks cpu time, in order to *extend its life / chemical reaction*, and seeks hard disk space in which to make copys of itself.

and the only difference between your Life, and what i am proposing, is One evolved, and the other was created, One is bade of water / carbon / protieins.. and the other is made of silicon and magnetised ceramic.

Why does somthing NEED to be made out of non man made chemicals to be alive ?

i think the real question here should be, simply When is somthing Self Aware.
When does it ceese beeing a tool, and become a slave ?

[agentmax 0]

AI software can be programmed to have emotional responses, but it is not self aware, I guess because nobody has yet tried. Self awareness involves knowing an issue, how it effects you (knowing you own feelings) and understanding how your actions create issues for others. If an AI program were told that his best friend's girlfriend is pregnant it would most likely respond 'congrats'. Does it know what that means? It would need to have a database of words, and be able to think of it's own response, something to say to fully express its feelings, not IF I% = "pregnant" THEN PRINT "Congrats."Does the program realize how old his best friend is, and if it's morally right for a young person to have gotten a girl pregnant? Could it foreshadow all the costs of money and time a child will take?So one way to test if a robot truly were self aware would be to tell it 'my girlfriend is pregnant' and have it cycle through these thoughts to output 'Will we still hang out often?"

[qwijibow 0]

Good point... However.you are trying to test a machine for intelligence using a concept which is totally alien to it.Lets say an alien from a world which has superior technology to us comes to visit.in this aliens world, re-production is done by some other means we cannot even think of... maybe they split like bacteria ??? and they have no understanding of sex.this alien would not know how to react to someone beeing pregnant, but i would still consider the alien intelligent.

[Subaru 0]

In essence, to be human would be to have a conscience soul. Non-organic matter cannot have a soul, and therefore, does not have a conscience existance. It just simply exists.

[d'vampress 0]

Certainly not! To be called human, you must have emotions and you should be feeling pain when you're hurt. But robots don't have emotions, do they? And I don't think it's possible for them to have it. And pain,blood, they can't have those. I believe that God created humans, and humans creating another human just sounds totally off. And, they don't have souls, they just can't...

[qwijibow 0]

In essence, to be human would be to have a conscience soul. Non-organic matter cannot have a soul, and therefore, does not have a conscience existance. It just simply exists.

define organic matter ?
define soul ?
organic matter is carbon based ?
if carbon can have a soul, why not silicone ?

Certainly not! To be called human, you must have emotions and you should be feeling pain when you're hurt. But robots don't have emotions, do they? And I don't think it's possible for them to have it. And pain,blood, they can't have those. I believe that God created humans, and humans creating another human just sounds totally off. And, they don't have souls, they just can't...

"They just cant" isnt a valid reason

Humans have blood and veins, machines have wire and electrons.

emotions are just chemicals in your brain that alters neuro transmitters conductivity right ?

Humans need emotions to alter how our brains work quickly in certin events, a machine wouldnt need these chemical signals.

The question should not be are robots considered human,,
the question is, are humans smart enough to constuct such an artificial beeing.

Im not suer if humans willl ever be smart enough to build such a machine... but its defiantly possable.

People are machines.
Humans use chemical reactions in muscles to move...
Robots use Electro magnetic field motord...
Humans have brain cell's
Robots have transistors.

Could God himself create a thinking, intelligent, self aware machine out of different chemicals that humans are made of ????

Its just a question of intelligence, and technology to build.

[tcave 0]

Im not suer if humans willl ever be smart enough to build such a machine... but its defiantly possable.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree

we might get close, but I don't think humans will ever build a machine that's equal to us..

[KitKat1405241488 0]

Ah, this thread reminds me of..... Star Trek! I think that with the character of Data they illustrate very nicely one of the biggest differences between human and machine. Even though Data is a billion times more 'intelligent' than the rest of the crew, he still can't quite grasp things like humour, sarcasm, and emotion (this of course changes when the writers see fit to introduce the 'emotion chip', but let us neglect this for the moment). The very fact that Data is so similar to humans in many respects makes the differences all the more obvious. Now, we haven't quite reached that level of technology. Indeed, anyone who has attempted to build a robot or program a complex code knows that it is incredibly hard to get it to perform tasks that we consider simple, or common sense. On the flip side though, they can perform enormous feats of logic that no human could ever achieve. I love reading Asimov, he's such a brilliant man. Keep in mind that his emphasis is usually on the social effects of technological change. By painting a vision of what the future consequences of building machines so similar to ourselves would be, we must ask ourselves: Should it be done? What would we gain or lose by such an act? I'm hoping to do my thesis project on AI, so I'm sure I'll have more to say on this issue later. I'll leave it here for now though, since I must stop procrastinating and get back to studying =)

[Killer008r 0]

Humans are no different than robots, one day we might be conqured by robots because our stupitity leads us to make such smart robots that they can under stand some emotions, and thoes emotions will probaly be the biggest ones of human-kind. Which would be Greed, anger, and pitty.

[agentmax 0]

Wait, why are we trying to make a fake human? At first I considered the possibility of using their limbs as prostetics... being so human-like and yet stronger. But why would we adapt our entire race to be cyborgs (I'd like some of that implanted ) when we could have the full robots doing all our jobs for us? Hold on, I have an idea for a new thread.

[iGuest 3]

Ah, this thread reminds me of..... Star Trek!  I think that with the character of Data they illustrate very nicely one of the biggest differences between human and machine.  Even though Data is a billion times more 'intelligent' than the rest of the crew, he still can't quite grasp things like humour, sarcasm, and emotion (this of course changes when the writers see fit to introduce the 'emotion chip', but let us neglect this for the moment).  The very fact that Data is so similar to humans in many respects makes the differences all the more obvious. 

 

Now, we haven't quite reached that level of technology.  Indeed, anyone who has attempted to build a robot or program a complex code knows that it is incredibly hard to get it to perform tasks that we consider simple, or common sense.  On the flip side though, they can perform enormous feats of logic that no human could ever achieve. 

 

I love reading Asimov, he's such a brilliant man.  Keep in mind that his emphasis is usually on the social effects of technological change.  By painting a vision of what the future consequences of building machines so similar to ourselves would be, we must ask ourselves:  Should it be done?  What would we gain or lose by such an act? 

 

I'm hoping to do my thesis project on AI, so I'm sure I'll have more to say on this issue later.  I'll leave it here for now though, since I must stop procrastinating and get back to studying  =)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This thread has a real strange title, with a real obvious answer. Answer=thats why robots are called robots and humans are called humans.

[Subaru 0]

This thread has a real strange title, with a real obvious answer.   Answer=thats why robots are called robots and humans are called humans.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

..And a dog is a dog and cat is a cat, right?