Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Pets

15 (10.2%)

Children

12 (8.2%)

Machines with complex behavior

19 (12.9%)

Sentient machines

51 (34.7%)

Stop over-analyzing the joke

38 (25.9%)

Toys

1 (0.7%)

Toxic waste

5 (3.4%)

Lawless lawrencium lolcat

6 (4.1%)

Total Members Voted: 131

[mtmerrick]

Masterpiece. Go home. you're drunk.

[Masterpiece]

Your point being?

[mtmerrick]

You appear to be neither thinking or speaking straight,  that's my point.

[Storel]

We know AnthroPC bodies can be bought from Best Buy, when their original hardware becomes unusable, so the linkage between hardware and software can't be tight. Who made PT410x's body, I wonder? He looks somehow... Russian? I know... It's the beard... And the angst.  Ленинградская робота завода, товарищ!

It seems to be much like buying computers in our world. You can buy a prebuilt computer from Dell or HP or whoever, with software preinstalled, and then you can manually upgrade the RAM or the drives or the case or the software or whatever with 3rd-party pieces from Best Buy  or PC Connection or Newegg or whoever.

Heck, one strip that took part at an AI get-together showed an AnthroPC with a Pintsize-like chassis that had been modded by the owner human companion with a window in the chest and lots of glowy lights, much the way some people like to mod their computer cases. (Not very respectful of the AI's rights, since s/he seemed both surprised by and resentful about it, but I expect some humans still think of themselves as owners.)

[GarandMarine]

I get the sense that the AI is very firmly software, and the chassis is just hardware. So the owner might own the chassis, but the AI partner downloaded into it?

[mustang6172]

Momo has to pay Marigold back for her chassis, so that means Momo owns the hardware (or will after a few easy payments of something).

[GarandMarine]

Maybe that's a more unique case of self ownership? Cause that was Momo's choice, and I've always had the impression that she was a bit on the forefront of AI rights and how she perceives herself in society.

[bhtooefr]

Also, I've said it before, but I think there's been some retconning re: AI rights. They were pretty clearly property at first, especially when the casemodded AI was shown.

[Is it cold in here?]

Jeph said somewhere that AnthroPCs own the hardware in which they live, which raises some questions about Station.

Mtmerrick raises a good point, made even better by the fact that AnthroPCs of different brands have different personalities.

[Kixie]

So, the Singularity did happen at one point, and it's stated in that comic that they (The AI of the QC universe) could enslave us, or remove our presence from the planet entirely.

This drastically affected the social/ethical/legal status of AnthroPCs in the way of a constitutional amendment granting them equal rights as humans. (Edit: Though, this only affects the AnthroPCs in the U.S. unless in the QC universe, all countries are centrally governed)

I believe Is it cold in here? was referring to this tumblr post (Ctrl-F "legal owner" .. it's about halfway down). Regardless of who purchases the hardware, the AI owns it. Therefore, Momo is paying back Marigold on moral code (Pardon the pun, couldn't find a way around it) alone.

So, they are effectively sentient robots that own their software and hardware, that share the same inalienable rights as humans, and apparently have the technology that could possibly "kill all humans" (as Bender would be apt to say) without a second subroutine processed.

[Is it cold in here?]

And they have free will, with no three laws of robotics. That's strong evidence that they were created by accident. If they had been deliberately engineered then someone would have put in safeguards.

[mtmerrick]

I've always thought any AI smart enough to need the three laws of robotics would be smart/capable enough to disable/delete them.....

[Method of Madness]

I can sort of understand the first law, but the second law is oppressive and the third law is rather unnecessary (and considering it can't counteract the first two means an AI can't defend itself).

[Is it cold in here?]

Yet there was reference once to AnthroPCs having ethics programming.

[ZoeB]

Yet there was reference once to AnthroPCs having ethics programming.

I feel that once AnthroPCs start thinking about ethics, they'll want ethics programming for themselves. Perhaps that's when they're deemed adult. Before then, limited rights, but limited responsibilities. We know many don't think growing up is worth it.

I'm not sure I do either...

[mtmerrick]

i'm not sure many HUMANS grow up wanting or ever using ethics.....

[Is it cold in here?]

Correction: the mention of morality programming was not in a strip, it was a joke in the newspost for 1345.

[Mr_Rose]

The three laws are a joke. Please don't use them as an example of what one could or should be do to a sapient AI. Even aside from the twenty or so stories Azimov spent describing dozens of loopholes in them even as implemented, the very nature of that implementation is suspect as it requires a singular universal definition of human that can be expressed programmatically at such a fundamental level that responding correctly is more like a reflex than a decision but also with a high enough degree of complexity that the determination is always correct.

[Is it cold in here?]

It would be bad art to use them anyway. Better that Jeph has done something independent.

[Method of Madness]

Bad writing, but not necessarily bad art.

[Is it cold in here?]

Without some equivalent of a conscience, AnthroPCs would be psychopaths, and could never be tolerated in general society. They'd have to be restricted to prisons and CEO positions.

[Loki]

There is a theory (I am using the non-scientific term here) saying that there are a lot of psychopaths who are clever enough to not let on that they are psychopaths, and walk through society unrecognized. I think that a sufficiently advanced AI wouldn't need conscience to be able to give the impression to have it. (Yes, I know that Momo addressed the "how are AIs not thinking faster than humans" point with Emily somewhere).

[ZoeB]

There is a theory (I am using the non-scientific term here) saying that there are a lot of psychopaths who are clever enough to not let on that they are psychopaths, and walk through society unrecognized.

I know a psychopath who behaves as if they have a conscience. They were convinced by Kant that that's the best way to go. Emotionally, they lack empathy, but intellectually, they fake it so well that unless they told you, you wouldn't know.
In many ways a very admirable person, proceeding through intellectual analysis what others require emotion to go through.
As they told me, fake it 24/7 for long enough and it becomes a habit that no longer requires conscious thought. It's just easier to treat other objects/people equally, even kindly, thereby maximising their own happiness. And avoiding the "angry peasant" rule....

[Valdís]

@Zoe: That seems quite apropos of a SMBC from earlier this week:

(click to show/hide)

  But yeah, I can very much respect that of them. Nothing negative about individuals capable of overcoming it like that.

[Sidhekin]

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

... it just seemed to fit the Kantian psychopath. 

[Redball]

I know a psychopath who behaves as if they have a conscience. They were convinced by Kant that that's the best way to go. Emotionally, they lack empathy, but intellectually, they fake it so well that unless they told you, you wouldn't know.
In many ways a very admirable person, proceeding through intellectual analysis what others require emotion to go through.
As they told me, fake it 24/7 for long enough and it becomes a habit that no longer requires conscious thought. It's just easier to treat other objects/people equally, even kindly, thereby maximising their own happiness. And avoiding the "angry peasant" rule....

Male or female? Not that it matters. A likable person? And any chance that telling you this doesn't necessarily mean it's true?

[Zebediah]

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

... it just seemed to fit the Kantian psychopath. 

As an aside, that quote is from Mother Night, in my opinion Vonnegut's best novel. It's the story of an undercover spy for the US in Nazi Germany who played his cover role too well. Well worth a read.

[Pilchard123]

Jeph said somewhere that AnthroPCs own the hardware in which they live, which raises some questions about Station.

Is the station Station's body? Or does Station just interface with it, like AnthroPCs can with keyboards (and I seem to remember mention of a monitor as well).

[Neko_Ali]

Station is not an AnthroPC though. It is an AI loaded into HannerDad's space station.

[Is it cold in here?]

"if an AI inhabits a chassis of any kind, that chassis is legally considered to be part of their person."

There must be an exception such that a nuclear missile submarine is not considered a "chassis".

[Valdís]

Or that there is an internal part of the submarine they operate out of, distinct from the submarine itself. Just connected to it.

Like the AI owning the computers running them, but that doesn't mean they can't disconnect those computers from their network to disallow access.

[Zebediah]

Precisely. A nuclear missile submarine isn't a computer but it has multiple computers built into it. Presumably one (or more) of those would house the controlling AI, but that computer could theoretically be disconnected and removed from the sub.

[Pilchard123]

That's what I meant about Station and the station.

[Valdís]

Yeah. It'd make sense for him to at least own a significant part of that station, though, given that he's a shareholder and it's his home. Like, owning disproportionately more of it compared to Ellicott-Chatham assets down on Earth. So in his case he could perhaps overrule any decisions like that.

With killer defense droids.

[KOK]

Is the station Station's body? Or does Station just interface with it, like AnthroPCs can with keyboards (and I seem to remember mention of a monitor as well).

Strip number one.