A Survey: What would your Super Heroic Moral Code be?

Bull. Machines have no constitutional rights nor is destroying them considered 'killing' them under the law.

Not yet.

You're a bit mistaken there on what constitutes "alive"-- sentience is NOT a prerequisite for "life"-- we have quite a few plant and animal forms that are considered alive, but lack any testable sentience, after all. If anything, something with an ongoing organic biological processes is a MUCH more common denominator than sentience-- but the operative definition of the term "alive" would still likely be more complex than that.

And we can legally kill many (most) living things --and do so-- all the time. There's quite a bit of precedence of our laws only applying to humans... and any effort to expand such laws would risk legal challenges and strong lobbying against. ( Broaden the definition too much and suddenly PETA will be trying to get a prosecutor to go after cattle slaughterhouses for murder, keep things adequately narrow and EVERY sentient would practically have to petition the courts for its own ruling)

And what exactly do you believe you are running on, you little collection of electrical impulses and soup of miscellaneous organic compounds?

Actually machines can be organic. And a lot of organs are mechanical in how they work.

And I refuse to believe in either of those ridiculous terms until someone shows me theirs.

In most western religions, at least.

Other belief structures (Japanese Shinto is one, IIRC) attribute soul-like sacred power to inanimate objects.

Heck, even in the Christian faiths... should we ever encounter a truly compelling facsimile of self-awareness in an AI- one with no apparent flaw to tell it from ours, we'd probably have at least one faith leader* somewhere that would declare that this act of creation included the divine's "breath of life" applying a soul to it.

*the odds of this happening increases in direct correlation with the size of financial contribution the AI is capable of making.

Even in your example that decision only applied to Data within the rules and regulations of Star Fleet. A quasi-military organization. Data was NOT granted constitutional rights by the Federation itself. As proof in that episode Data was willing to resign from Star Fleet in order to get away from the man that wanted to disassemble him. Outside of Star Fleet he was nothing more than a machine.

Very true Carnifax, and the spirit, while it may be there, is not easily provable to most people, much less scientists unwilling to continue looking. For the record, I believe in a soul, and like many other religions, I do not think that only humans have souls. If we go any deeper though, this thread will be deleted.

By the way Chase, they have done studies proving that plants are aware of themselves and their surroundings. Obviously some more than others.

And you'd have god knows how many millions wrapped in their self righteous convictions of infallibility declaring the opposite. These are the same people that get bent out of shape over the term 'marriage' and how/if it applies to same sex couples. And we won't even bother bringing up the topic of cloning. So any chance of them supporting the idea that a machine is alive and has a soul is slim to none.

I know this is quoted out of order but I wanted to address later posts first.

What Chase said here is exactly why I chose what I posted carefully.

At the same time, the scientific definition of life includes the ability to undergo "metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations." (pulled from wikipedia, but it does reflect the standard definition rather well)

Any effort to classify a computer AI as living would require a re-thinking of the definition of life.

BUT- as you mention, machines can be organic-- our bodies do incorporate many, if not all, of the six simple machines in its operation. When people speak of "a machine" in GG's context though, they're usually talking about an inorganic man-made complex machine.

... But science HAS recently created true synthesized life-- starting with a cell that's had all its genetic material removed, a scientist has build from scratch a very VERY basic strand of DNA that, when put in that cell, caused the cell to perform all the characteristic prerequesites for the scientific concept of being alive. Granted, it's a one-celled critter, but making more complex genotypes is just a matter of time and effort. Once we can make complex genotypes... well, we can already clone tissue and graft it to current people. We can "grow" bone to use in grafts. We're working on growing more complex organs on latticeworks like livers and heart valves. How long until we can synthesize and assemble a complete biological humanoid? How would it be treated?


- Some will argue that they don't have souls and therefore have lesser or no rights.
- Some will say they're abominations.
- Some will say that their CREATORS are abominations, but patronize the creations as victims deserving of some care and protection... (some will add... provided they don't reproduce)
- Businesses may argue that they have a debt to their creator and should (at least) be required to serve a period of indentured servitude to offset the cost of creation.
- Some will embrace them fully as brothers and sisters.


All these interests will battle out their differences in the media and courts, and it will be decades if not centuries after the decanting of the first synthetic person before any lasting standard emerges.

Partially it depends on what is going on but all things being equal:

- trash a machine not a person unless no other way to stop the person (see Doomsday)

- not sure about biological but non-human. It is possible I would decide to squish it but I'd prefer to contain it.

- alien I'd also try to contain or subdue first but if that wasn't working I'd start figuring out how to hurt it fast

If I did not ID the opponent as being living or human, I would probably use more force. It would also depend on the target's reactions. I would sooner incinerate a human being than incinerate a tiger or other endangered species. On the other hand, giant invertebrates would get the full force of my power as they are just damn creepy.

Pedestrian "Ahh a giant spider!!"

Hero Me *Running the other way* "Ahhhh Kill it!!!"

It's a good thing souls and spirits don't exist then, huh?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

This... particularly coming from you... made my day

Yes, the philosophical difference lies in the distinction of SELF awareness, which, admittedly, we have problems even measuring through outside observation devoid of language, let alone all the issues with actually DEFINING it. Plant tests have shown some situational awareness and responsiveness, but nothing to suggest the concept of self is present.

Again, though, the whole concept of self-awareness may just be a human-centric conceit- a kind of "soul" for the scientific-minded that justifies our domination of the globe. We do, after all, consider this as the norm- something inherent in all human beings by default, pretty much regardless of developmental age, mental condition, (and political persuasion :P ) but we only grudgingly and with great reservation attribute it to other species. It's still debated in "highly-developed" minds of dolphins, elephants, and apes, despite considerable scientifically-controlled tests... and the less scientific but much more frequent observations suggesting self-awareness in pets is discarded as simple anthropomorphism by affectionate pet-owners.

i submit self awareness as a recursive entity terminating in narcissism.

this may or may not have the effect that was intended.

It's Friday, gimme gimme!

--NT

here

Marcian posted when he got close to the 100 responses mark since he discovered the survey tool charges for more results.