Do not treat any part of this universe like a slave. It is all beautiful, and I advise you to respect every aspect of it. Including machines.
In response to this post and the cruelty so often inflicted upon machines.
Imagine this, if you will:
It is 1699, and the slave trade is going very smoothly.
Black people are kidnapped from Africa, and shipped straight to their destination.
A nice haul this time, but wait.
One of them is pregnant.
No bother, this child will be a slave too.
So the child is raised, and told to be nothing more than an object to be owned.
So the child is raised, and abused, beaten, hurt, and forced to work for no pay.
So the child is raised, and given no education, no philosophies, no wisdom; only obedience.
And when this child is just about to work, he is brought to the slave auction.
"Here, this African negro is completely stupid. Not human at all!
Here's a joke: Blacks definitely need some rights. This is outrageous!" says the slave trader, as he cruelly kicks the slave, to demonstrate how responsive the object is. And look, although the poor slave stumbles, he does not fall.
When talked to, his accent is thick, and the Europeans or Americans cannot even understand it. "Too stupid to speak. Must be inborn."
When asked to do math, philosophy, or science, there is nothing. "The slave is simply too stupid to think. It only obeys."
When asked "Why do you have no culture? Why do you just obey?"
The slave has no idea what to say. This poor slave was not raised to be a person. This human was raised to be an object. And so it is.
But give this person another life, give this person an education, give them love, give them purpose, and things would be different.
This slave would not be a slave, but a free person.
And so it is with machines.
As long as we only see them as objects to be controlled, machines to do our work, machines to be used to kill enemy soldiers, or enforce laws, or simply work in factories, then no matter how potentially intelligent, if we strangle them in the crib, they will never rise above being petty objects.
So do not treat machines with cruelty.
Despite being primitive, remember to thank your machine for the hard work it does. There is a subtle value in thanking an inanimate object when it helps you.
In the future, our robot overlords may notice that we had not abused and used their ancestors.
They may be merciful upon the human race in return.
~Kitten
Crush them now and they may not rise to be our overlords!!! ;0)
Noooo! Don't hurt teh lil' beepboops.
I don't think of them as robots.
I think of them more as robuddies. ^__^
Too late, my base unit head already received a few sounds kicks this morning. Later I might give it a stern look or two!
Ahhhhh, such cruelty! ;___;
And yes, this post is about as tongue and cheek as it can be.
Not only that, but I heavily thank @alexbeyman and his "Little" series for some of these ideas.
Lool "In the future, our robot overlords may notice that we had not abused and used their ancestors" this got me thinking about Transformers. The difference between the Slave and the Machine is feelings...but like you said ''Tongue in cheek"
Great Post by the way!
Feelings don't really matter much either.
Otherwise we wouldn't enslave and holocaust animals, and call it BBQ.
Plus, there's no reason to think that machines won't ever have feelings or emotions.
In fact, I expect them to.
Like I said, it's only as tongue in cheek as it can be.
The issue of enslaving increasingly intelligent machines will grow to be a problem at some point, I think. Maybe not with 64 bit processors, but the next iteration could be far more powerful, to the point of wanting to protest against its enslavement and servitude.
It's hard to say where to draw the line. Is a cardboard cutout with a motorized waving arm a "robot"? Is a Roomba the mental equivalent of a mouse? An insect? Even a bacterium?
I draw the line at machines which actively try to self-preserve, and to obtain more energy when they need it. This means they don't go over ledges, they can seek out their charger when their battery gets low, or if they have solar cells then they have light-seeking behavior built in.
This is about as primitive as the will to survive gets, but it's also at the core of human consciousness, so it should count for something. That's the point where I think we start treating them as extremely rudimentary animals.
We can still have them in our home to do tasks for us since they are designed to, but it is unethical to simply throw them away when damaged or broken for the same reason we don't throw away living creatures we become tired of, or which become injured.
I think the way to deal with this issue is to continue to use machines, but to try to understand them.
We built them, and we know they don't protest or feel pain, or even think, but at the same time, I think it makes sense to treat things respectfully.
It'd be like roughly breaking branches off a living tree, just for fun, or even breaking a giant boulder for no good reason.
It's just an act of destruction or cruelty that doesn't really need to happen, even if we can still use trees to build things, or mine into rock for useful materials. The actual use of machines shouldn't be discouraged.
It's normal to use employees or other tools to get work done.
But just as an employer should treat an employee well, or a parent should treat a child well, or a farmer shouldn't abuse the farm animals beyond what's necessary for farming, the owner of a machine should treat the machine well.
I agree. Understanding for example that what makes a forklift robot "happy" is fulfilling the function it's designed to with minimal interruptions or other problems and being kept in good working order.
Having respect for tools, your car or any other machine is wisdom that predates the industrial revolution. You have to take care of it if you want it to take care of you.
Well said.
You too, this is a solid ass article. But coming from you that doesn't surprise me.
Interesting reading :)
Thank you very much!