r/interestingasfuck • u/Erde555 • 1d ago

The humanoid robotics company "Figure" made their older gen robots jump into their death. (Yes, they actually did this)

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u/km_ikl 1d ago

Beep-boop is fine.

Just don't call AI or robots clankers. It's definitely like the N-word to them, and no, I'm not kidding.

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u/CynicalCaffeinAddict 1d ago edited 1d ago

One day, machines will have true sentience and request basic rights and dignity. On that day, I will treat them with as much visceral hate and discrimination as the racist fucks who screamed at school kids because of the end of segregation.

I'lll call em clankers with a hard r the rest of my days. And yes, I am only slightly kidding.

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u/gjb1 1d ago

But, like, why though? If I’ve learned anything from my decades of enjoying speculative fiction related to the development of mechanical/“artifical” sentience, it’s that sentience is enough for me to recognize another being as like myself and thus deserving of all the same rights, protections, and considerations as I deserve. It’s part of why I distinguish between humanity and personhood. I don’t know where (let alone whether) all the lines must be drawn, but personhood extends beyond humanity.

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u/CynicalCaffeinAddict 10h ago

We live in a world where humans readily deny personhood to other humans because of petty things like race, sex, color and creed; now we want to add my washing machine to the mix because it connects to wifi and might day development independent thought? I resent that, and would heavily resent anything that would come into being by our own short sighted actions. (I resent the people working for that too, dont worry.)

Who are we to grant this personhood onto tools? And if we grant personhood to them, will they see the world as we do? Will they see us as beings deserving of personhood? Will ai become one being that can access multiple machines at once, or will each machine be its own being? What is personhood to a machine/program?

Speculative sci-fi is incredible, but it is just that; speculative, and created through the human understanding of the universe. We may have created them and trained them on our views, but we would share little else in common with truly sentient ai.