(As an aside, if you haven’t watched Silent Running, you should – it’s… haunting and incredibly sad. It stays with you. Srsly.)

I’m not one who likes writing hard sci-fi. I tend to stick to dystopia. This doesn’t stop me reading hard sci-fi though, and empathising with these AI computers. And it’s this ability to empathise with these AI computers that got me wondering what sort of ethics humans will need to adhere to if/when we get to a point in the future where AI computers are widespread.

Why do I say that we’ll need ethics? They’re just machines, right?

Well, I don’t see it that way. Humans have a bad tendency to personify. It already happens with current technology. People give their gadgets and computers names, and talk about them as if they had distinct personalities. How attached do you think we’ll get when computers not only have names, but can talk and interact with us as if they were alive?

Would we consider them alive? What if they can create, independent of human intervention, like Edgar did? Would we respect their claims for ownership of their creations? Or will we claim they are our creations because they’re just machines and can’t create?

I wonder if we even have a right to give machines human-like intelligence and them claim total control over them, that we have some sort of right to decide if they live or die, insomuch as computers can live or die. If they are similar to sentient beings, if we kill them, does it become murder? Or would we end up justifying it the way we justify euthanasing animals? Could you argue those computers would have a ‘right to life’?

This is where my own opinions about this get muddled. I honestly can’t find a position because I can see all the alternatives and options and ideas and none stand out as being ‘the right choice’.

This is especially true for me with the issue of euthanasia. On the one hand, I can sympathise with wanting to end the misery for someone with a terminal illness who wishes to die. However, I can also see it as murder. I also can’t see why we can justify euthanasing animals as being ‘humane’ and ‘putting them out of their misery’, and yet applying the same thing to humans is somehow wrong. It’s not like the animals can consent to being euthanised. Indeed, there would be some terminal patients who might not be able to consent. There are also patients who do consent and wish to die, and somehow we think we know better than they do in allowing them to live and drawing out their suffering because ending their life is seen as wrong.

I know there’s a counter argument that, well, animals and people are different, but are they really? Animals feel pain. They get sick. They love us. We look after them. They might not have the same intellectual capabilities or ’sentience’ as we do, but I doubt that means they are mindless robots. There are different forms of intelligence and ways to communicate.

Still, we feel we have guardianship over our pets and animals because we feel they can’t make decisions for themselves. We have power of attorney for people who can’t make decisions for themselves. There are people who have ‘do not resuscitate’ things. And yet…

I don’t know. I’m feeling a little morbid today. I might go get some coffee once this is done and do some assignments instead of procrastinating further. I doubt I’ve solved anything in this entry, apart from articulate some thoughts on similar yet different issues. I think I had more to say, but the words aren’t there anymore, so I’ll save them for later when I can think of more to say.