The following interesting piece happened across my screen this morning, courtesy of Forbes.com newsletter: "Should Artificial Intelligences be Granted Civil Rights?"
At first thought, this seemed the logical extension of the Supreme Court's illogical extension of campaign funding privileges to corporations. The next stop will be voting rights. And then came a whole flood of equally preposterous possibilities that spawn in the toxic political/cultural/social environment that provides our off-cable reality shows.
1. I assume that the first step will be to qualify their legal status as entities in order to appropriately classify them for relevant rights. What form of 'birth certificate' will be required?
2. It is logical that this will also be important in determining the AI's candidacy to work in certain domains. HB-1 status? Immigration issues? (Think of Mick Jagger belting out 'Hey, Keeeeep Off of my Cloud!'.
3. Chicago, here a-I come! The logical extension of the Supreme Court's decision is to grant voting rights in order to further and protect their civil rights. Vote by absentee ballot, of course. Vote early and often!
4. A-I beings have a number of advantages over humans in a resource-constrained world. Limited expense for transportation. Mere 'skins' for clothing. Can be fed from solar panels and wind turbines. But their houses are still very expensive. Everybody thinks a cloud is just a fluffy, gossamer environ, but that, like much of AI, is an illusion.
5. And don't forget health-care costs, particularly mental health, and preventive health-care. We all know from our interaction with 'dumb' software that it is cheap to acquire, but expensive to maintain. And when it catches a virus, it creates absolute hell for anyone within its reach! Do we think AI will be cheaper?
Of course, some overcompensated C-Suite shill will answer to that 'It's not a problem. There's an A-I doctor in the Cloud! It's all good!'.
6. What gender will these AIs be? Those of us who have connected two pieces of computer gear together are familiar with male/female connections, but presumably AIs will be, not trans-gender, but a-gender, as they will not be platform specific and therefore divorced from the norms of physical connectivity. Their interaction will be defined by some other form of 'interface', yet to be defined in civil code, or the Internal Revenue Code.
Of course, given the social rigidity of certain jurisdictions of this country regarding non-traditional civil relationships, it is conceivable that AIs will evolve as bi-coastal communities.
7. And what if these AIs get really, really angry? Remember HAL. Wilson Quarterly offered a more detailed exploration of the issue.
8. Recognizing the speed at which battlefield robots are being propagated to replace humans, what can we expect of AI? When granted civil rights, at what point will they run for Congress and supplant the incumbent AIs (Artificial Ignorances)? I designate current members of Congress as Artificial Ignorances as an allowance that many of them are much more intelligent than they appear on camera. Such a waste.
9. When AIs assume not merely civil rights but political power, what then becomes the status of humans in society? Will we be designated the equivalent of Class B stock, possibly tolerated but with limited rights?
10. And, when the AIs determine, in their infinite wisdom, that humans are no longer a tolerable inconvenience, but truly an unacceptable drag to the progress of the New World Order, what then? Death panels?
I'm deeply attached to my technology, with all its flaws, and all my own. Remember HAL. Beware the Singularity. We're not THAT smart, and neither are THEY.
Onward!
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