Two Arguments for AI (or Robot) Rights: The No-Relevant-Difference Argument and the Simulation Argument
Wednesday, I argued that artificial intelligences created by us might deserve more moral consideration from us than do arbitrarily-chosen human strangers (assuming that the AIs are conscious and have human-like general intelligence and emotional range), since we will be partly responsible for their existence and character.
In that post, I assumed that such artificial intelligences would deserve at least some moral consideration (maybe more, maybe less, but at least some). Eric Steinhart has pressed me to defend that assumption. Why think that such AIs would have any rights?
First, two clarifications:
(1.) I speak of "rights", but the language can be weakened to accommodate views on which beings can deserve moral consideration without having rights.
(2.) AI rights is probably a better phrase than robot rights, since similar issues arise for non-robotic AIs, including oracles (who can speak but have no bodily robotic features like arms) and sims (who have simulated bodies that interact with artificial, simulated environments).
Now, two arguments.
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The No-Relevant-Difference Argument
Assume that all normal human beings have rights. Assume that both bacteria and ordinary personal computers in 2015 lack rights. Presumably, the reason bacteria and ordinary PCs lack rights is that there is some important difference between them and us. For example, bacteria and ordinary PCs (presumably) lack the capacity for pleasure or pain, and maybe rights only attach to beings with the capacity for pleasure or pain. Also, bacteria and PCs lack cognitive sophistication, and maybe rights only attach to beings with sufficient cognitive sophistication (or with the potential to develop such sophistication, or belonging to a group whose normal members are sophisticated). The challenge, for someone who would deny AI rights, would be to find a relevant difference which grounds the denial of rights.
The defender of AI rights has some flexibility here. Offered a putative relevant difference, the defender of AI rights can either argue that that difference is irrelevant, or she can concede that it is relevant but argue that some AIs could have it and thus that at least those AIs would have rights.
What are some candidate relevant differences?
(A.) AIs are not human, one might argue; and only human beings have rights. If we regard "human" as a biological category term, then indeed AIs would not be human (excepting, maybe, artificially grown humans), but it's not clear why humanity in the biological sense should be required for rights. Many people think that non-human animals (apes, dogs) have rights. Even if you don't think that, you might think that friendly, intelligent space aliens, if they existed, could have rights. Or consider a variant of Blade Runner: There are non-humans among the humans, indistinguishable from outside, and almost indistinguishable in their internal psychology as well. You don't know which of your neighbors are human; you don't even know if you are human. We run a DNA test. You fail. It seems odious, now, to deny you all your rights on those grounds. It's not clear why biological humanity should be required for the possession of rights.
(B.) AIs are created by us for our purposes, and somehow this fact about their creation deprives them of rights. It's unclear, though, why being created would deprive a being of rights. Children are (in a very different way!) created by us for our purposes -- maybe even sometimes created mainly with their potential as cheap farm labor in mind -- but that doesn't deprive them of rights. Maybe God created us, with some purpose in mind; that wouldn't deprive us of rights. A created being owes a debt to its creator, perhaps, but owing a debt is not the same as lacking rights. (In Wednesday's post, I argued that in fact as creators we might have greater moral obligations to our creations than we would to strangers.)
(C.) AIs are not members of our moral community, and only members of our moral community have rights. I find this to be the most interesting argument. On some contractarian views of morality, we only owe moral consideration to beings with whom we share an implicit social contract. In a state of all-out war, for example, one owes no moral consideration at all to one's enemies. Arguably, were we to meet a hostile alien intelligence, we would owe it no moral consideration unless and until it began to engage with us in a socially constructive way. If we stood in that sort of warlike relation to AIs, then we might owe them no moral consideration even if they had human-level intelligence and emotional range. Two caveats on this: (1.) It requires a particular variety of contractarian moral theory, which many would dispute. And (2.) even if it succeeds, it will only exclude a certain range of possible AIs from moral consideration. Other AIs, presumably, if sufficiently human-like in their cognition and values, could enter into social contracts with us.
Other possibly relevant differences might be proposed, but that's enough for now. Let me conclude by noting that mainstream versions of the two most dominant moral theories -- consequentialism and deontology -- don't seem to contain provisions on which it would be natural to exclude AIs from moral consideration. Many consequentialists think that morality is about maximizing pleasure, or happiness, or desire satisfaction. If AIs have normal human cognitive abilities, they will have the capacity for all these things, and so should presumably figure in the consequentialist calculus. Many deontologists think that morality involves respecting other rational beings, especially beings who are themselves capable of moral reasoning. AIs would seem to be rational beings in the relevant sense. If it proves possible to create AIs who are psychologically similar to us, those AIs wouldn't seem to differ from natural human beings in the dimensions of moral agency and patiency emphasized by these mainstream moral theories.
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The Simulation Argument
Nick Bostrom has argued that we might be sims. That is, he has argued that we ourselves might be artificial intelligences acting in a simulated environment that is run on the computers of higher-level beings. If we allow that we might be sims, and if we know we have rights regardless of whether or not we are sims, then it follows that being a sim can't, by itself, be sufficient grounds for lacking rights. There would be at least some conceivable AIs who have rights: the sim counterparts of ourselves.
This whole post assumes optimistic technological projections -- assumes that it is possible to create human-like AIs whose rights, or lack of rights, are worth considering. Still, you might think that robots are possible but sims are not; or you might think that although sims are possible, we can know for sure that we ourselves aren't sims. The Simulation Argument would then fail. But it's unclear what would justify either of these moves. (For more on my version of sim skepticism, see here.)
Another reaction to the Simulation Argument might be to allow that sims have rights relative to each other, but no rights relative to the "higher level" beings who are running the sim. Thus, if we are sims, we have no rights relative to our creators -- they can treat us in any way they like without risking moral transgression -- and similarly any sims we create have no rights relative to us. This would be a version of argument (B) above, and it seems weak for the same reasons.
One might hold that human-like sims would have rights, but not other sorts of artificial beings -- not robots or oracles. But why not? This puts us back into the No-Relevant-Difference Argument, unless we can find grounds to morally privilege sims over robots.
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I conclude that at least some artificial intelligences, if they have human-like experience, cognition, and emotion, would have at least some rights, or deserve as least some moral consideration. What range of AIs deserve moral consideration, and how much moral consideration they deserve, and under what conditions, I leave for another day.
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