Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT 4176-4180 (13th - 17th, January 2020)
Aenno:
--- Quote from: notsocool on 15 Jan 2020, 22:13 ---New to this forum, but am I the only person that thinks May really isn't entitled to a better body?
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--- End quote ---
As a zero, I should notice that we don't actually know what's constitute robotic rights in QC universe. But, I think, we can assume that spirit of UDHR applies. Of course, UDHR is, actually, good wishes: they're ideal, with no real country I know endorsing it in full. I think it's Article 25 of UDHR: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control." So in my argumentation I'm going to presume that UDHR spirit is really applies. Also I'd say it's safe to assume that parole system for AIs is essentially the same thing as parole system for humans (at least, author himself was researching parole laws for humans when creating May situation, and no reason exists for us to believe otherwise). Of course, it's absolutely possible it isn't the case (after all, at least some AIs were considered and treated as property of humans), but then we have nothing to found reasonings on.
1. Then, it's safe to assume that parole officer have a right and obligation to approve or forbid her to move into some kind of body. For example, actually, moving her into body like Momo has in this moment can be considered as weapon ownership (she has a powerful shocker built in), and be forbidden. We know for sure that parole conditions are including at least some clauses for her using her hardware (like restriction on processor time selling). Also bodies like Bubbles' or Pintsize' ones exists; no way parole system would allow convict to use one of this. Actually, it's quite possible that May as a conditions of parole is obliged to use government-sponsored body.
2. As May parole requirement was actually obligations to work with humans as social companion, and, as you pointed yourself, she is still on her term, her being living with humans and apply for human job quite possibly are conditions of parole. Keep in mind that a) AI community is actually quite shitty (the first reaction on philosophical disagreement is shaming and total boycott); b) believes that integration with humans are really important; 3) has a habit of using unsuitable persons and chassises as social workers and human relationship contacts.
What I'm trying to say is that her living conditions aren't absolutely her choice. Of course, she can refuse conditions of parole and return to prison. But paroles supposed to be acts of mercy, not a field for social experiments about social integration.
So, does somebody (like parole officer) owe her some decent body? No, I don't think so. To her credit, May herself does accept it totally.
Still, a situation she is into now is a situation where convicted criminal is released under the condition of living in some shack without hot water and electricity, in a middle of nowhere, and declaring "hey, at least government pays for it! honest citizens should pay for decent living! by the way, you can't change it without our approval or rent it, and if something breaks it's for you to repair it". It can, perfectly, be lawful. Still, it's indecent.
So, don't take it wrong - a thing Roko doing here isn't a part of defending May's legal rights. It's charity and act of mercy. Acts of mercy aren't something that should be deserved.
notsocool:
I do appreciate that Roko's action is being absolutely charitable. But the comic explicitly says that paroled AIs do not have to be embodied. May is not forced to stay in her chassis. This is the reason her case is a niche of a niche. As the government employee says, most AIs parolees are either disembodied and choose to stay disembodied, or they have bodies before committing their crimes and go back to them.
This is the comic itself saying that May is not compelled by law to a) have a body or b) stay in a government-issued body (because AIs who have their own bodies can use them, as the guy said). May wanted a body, and they gave her one. It sucks, but the point is that AIs who never committed a crime do not get bodies either - Winslow and Momo had theirs bought by their friends, and Momo in fact has promised to pay Marigold back.
See, this is the main difference with Momo and May. Momo spent time befriending Marigold, and had no money of her own to buy a new chassis. Marigold bought her a chassis, and Momo is working to pay her back. I can get that May may not be allowed to become what Momo did... wait.
WHY would that not be allowed? AI are not owned, this is explicit in the comic. This means that Momo, Winslow and Pintsize are just basically friends to their humans. There is literally nothing stopping May from being a friend to a human. May's relationship with Dale is EXACTLY the relationship Pintsize has with Marten (down to the attitude). Sure, this isn't a route to a chassis, but making friends and asking them to loan you money for a chassis which you use to work off the cost is something Momo explicitly did in the comic.
One thing is the the comic never explains how much a chassis costs, other than that it is not cheap. Let's say one is $5000. If this is the case, her repairs can't be that expensive. Her leg falling off is caused by a faulty five dollar part. Sure, labor is not cheap, but why would her maintenance eat up her entire salary? Let's say she earns minimum wage. At 7.25 an hour (federal minimum), and a 40 hours work week, she would earn $290 a week. If she is paying Faye $290 a week to maintain her body, the problem is that in 18 weeks (4.5 months) she will have paid more than a new one would cost. On the other hand, if she chose to be disembodied for that time, she would now have enough to BUY a new body. Now if a new body costs way more than $5000, I have to ask: do you think a government should be handing out a way more than $5000 gift to a new parolee?
Just keep in mind that by remaining disembodied, almost all of May's problems would be solved, and this would still not prevent her from hanging out with Dale! She's not a prisoner, so she could still connect to Dale's glasses and interact with him the same way she did while in robot prison. It's not like part of her healing process requires her to physically touch Dale.
Think about this: to a human, a body is necessary just to be alive. But for an AI, it's not. They can live in a server farm and hang out in digital space, like Roko did with Lemon when her body was destroyed. The comic explicitly says that lots of AIs, both parolees and law-abiding ones, do this. In fact, that was what May was doing before committing her crime. But she wanted to be with Dale, so she asked for a body and got one. And they gave her one! For free! Sure, it sucks, but even for us humans, we understand that when you get something for free, it's not gonna be great!
JoeCovenant:
Sorry... all I can read into the posts above is... "How dare May want to have a body!"
Wingy:
They're just exploring the logic of the situation.
But that's not what Roko needs to work on at this point. She needs to raise enough of a stink that the simplest thing for the bureaucrats to do, their easiest action, is to replace May's body with a better one. This offers two arcs with interesting possibilities (pre and post replacement), especially the definition of better.
If May were swapped into a new earth-moving machine that had somehow lost it's built-in AI, would that be "better"? Probably not from a story-telling perspective. What about Crushbot? Even Crushbot was a useful AI in society, whatever his current desire to be different than he is. Maybe May and Crushbot should swap chassis??!??
Dngrsone:
--- Quote from: Wingy on 16 Jan 2020, 05:33 ---They're just exploring the logic of the situation.
But that's not what Roko needs to work on at this point. She needs to raise enough of a stink that the simplest thing for the bureaucrats to do, their easiest action, is to replace May's body with a better one. This offers two arcs with interesting possibilities (pre and post replacement), especially the definition of better.
If May were swapped into a new earth-moving machine that had somehow lost it's built-in AI, would that be "better"? Probably not from a story-telling perspective. What about Crushbot? Even Crushbot was a useful AI in society, whatever his current desire to be different than he is. Maybe May and Crushbot should swap chassis??!??
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I question whether Crushbot is the name of the body or the AI inhabiting it...
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