More intelligent than some on this forum ...

[Troll]

But it is a mechanical creation. It would be able to turn off various sensors/kill unwanted processes therefore it could never feel pain either physical or emotional unless it wanted to.

Bearing this in mind you would not be able to abuse it as it could not react to the abuse unless it decided to, therefore it is in effect abusing itself, hence no case to answer and no rights needed.

Could you ...hurt its feelings a little by saying something like the latest model is more stable/powerful/faster etc... or p*ss it off by mentioning you prefer this years colours?

[Mailman]

Meh, we could insult robots as much as we want and never fear the consequences cause the 3 laws* will always protect us!

Mailman

*unless of course some truely global organisation releases a new model that can give the 3 laws its own meaning!

[VectraMan]

They don't have feelings (why would you program a robot to screw up for no reason now and again because they were feeling bad), they don't experience pain (Why would you code them to feel pain, what use could it have?), discrimination against them would really have no effect as they would be programmed to peform a specific task.

Pain is very useful for telling you something is wrong before you do more damage to yourself. Machines often have this already in as much as they have sensors to detect faults and warn the user of the fault so it can be rectified. So machines do feel pain.

[Mailman]

Absolute twaddle. What machines detect are problems that need to be fixed not a physical sensation we call pain.

Stop assigning values to innanimate chunks of metal. Next thing you know you will be comparing man to god and robots to his creations!

Mailman

[sasguru]

Absolute twaddle. What machines detect are problems that need to be fixed not a physical sensation we call pain.



Mailman

Correct - for the present. What we have now are simple feedback loops.
But if we can get a machine to be conscious then there is no reason it would not feel pain, just because it was built of metal. What is pain but a series of electro-chemical states?

[VectraMan]

Absolute twaddle. What machines detect are problems that need to be fixed not a physical sensation we call pain.

And pain is just an electrical impulse telling the brain that something is wrong. It's no different in principle to an electrical sensor in a machine reporting a fault to it's control unit.

[sasguru]

And pain is just an electrical impulse telling the brain that something is wrong. It's no different in principle to an electrical sensor in a machine reporting a fault to it's control unit.

Indeed. But why do we associate feelings of unpleasantness with it?

[threaded]

Indeed. But why do we associate feelings of unpleasantness with it?

Because you have not achieved enlightenment.

[VectraMan]

Indeed. But why do we associate feelings of unpleasantness with it?

If it was pleasurable we wouldn't move away/run/stop doing it/see a doctor etc. When modern cars detect a fault they reduce power and go into "limp home mode" which isn't that far removed from how our bodies react to injury. To what extent you can say the car feels pain is a matter of philosiphy, but if you pick up something hot you don't go through an intelligent consicious process to reach a decision about what to do, you drop it instictively. In that way we're no different to a machine that's been programmed to drop something in response to a heat sensor to protect itself from injury.

[sasguru]

If it was pleasurable we wouldn't move away/run/stop doing it/see a doctor etc. When modern cars detect a fault they reduce power and go into "limp home mode" which isn't that far removed from how our bodies react to injury. To what extent you can say the car feels pain is a matter of philosiphy, but if you pick up something hot you don't go through an intelligent consicious process to reach a decision about what to do, you drop it instictively. In that way we're no different to a machine that's been programmed to drop something in response to a heat sensor to protect itself from injury.

You're missing the point. We were talking about giving robots rights. In so far as they "feel" pain, that would be correct. But should the car above be given rights because it has "sensed pain"?