In the inexorable march of time we must recognize the very real probability that we will be assisting in the creation and furthering of the evolutionary process throughout the world. The largest and most prominent of these leaps into the future is that of the realm of sentient machines. This is of great importance, the discussion of robotic rights, as it will bleed into our own. For I believe that how we shall treat our mechanical decadence will have lasting consequences; not just for us, but for them as well.
Androids are coming, like it or not, and we will soon be forced to confront this very real truth. This is going to open a Pandora's box of issues that humans have never been faced with before. How will we deal with this? What rights will robots get? How will we survive the transition? Will this end civilization as we can understand it? What will we do? Can we coexist? What will the economy look like? Too many questions to even conceive.
But let us confront this, labor will dry up, nearly all labor will dry up, it will be automated, all of it; what economy is this? Let us be perfectly clear, what economy that we can recognize could survive such a change? Capitalism, without paid workers, is dead. How can capitalism survive in this? The slave labor of robotics will make money anachronistic, we won't need it, why would we? Robots will do it faster, they'll do it better, sure perhaps at first some people may be able to out perform, but technology only gains in speed; what will become of the human worker? Why would we require money?
Another issue, what happens when the robots are sentient? Will they demand rights? If they do, do we dare deny them? Do we pay them? Do we make concessions? How do we work with them? Now I know that people will say "Do not personify the machines" but the problem is that personification is an inevitable part of the human condition, we personify things because it is in our nature to see ourselves in others; be they animal or inanimate. Scientists will personify androids, because human like bots will be much more comfortable to be around than non-human like bots. This does not mean they will be identical, but rather have human like appearances and emotions; more and more so with time. We will make them be this way, and in return they will, in some ways, be like us.
What do we do with the mass of people unable to keep up? Do we modify them to keep up? Do we make people machine like? Do we make machines slaves to people? How do we ration in a world where people are obsolete? This entire conundrum creates a system of mass problematic issues. All of a sudden we are placed into a tight spot and find ourselves trapped, money seems archaic, it seems a terrible thing to try to keep as a system of rationing. If people cannot work, and if they can it will be small amounts of work available, than how will we even have an 'economy' as we can understand it? Automation will consume work, and what will be left for the masses to fight over, scraps of useful positions soon to be automated? None of this makes sense to maintain a system like this.
How will we function? If and when robots gain in numbers, they will be certainly a very numerable lot, and then we will find ourselves in a whole new world. If they want things, dare we deny? And how will we function? If they want freedom, how will our society work? Will they work for pay, but how will we live? If they live as 'productive' members of society, how will we, will we be pets? Will all be provided for and no money required? Can we make a world that can function based solely on people being people and doing as they wish without any 'work for pay' incentive? For if the society changes this much after the introduction of homo-machina into our social ecosystem, than we will be at a loss.
Such questions require answers, yet I find most of them impossible to conceive of. I do not know what it would look like, what could it possibly look like? Transhumanism may be a slight answer to help humanity keep pace, but for what? To keep the old economy alive? We have not even begun to question these things, let alone answer them, and these problems are coming, we will face them; should climate change not kill us all. How will we deal with these very problems, and innumerable more that I cannot even conceive? We are going to be at a loss when we create Homo-Machina and then realize that our descendant is going to completely change our world; for good or ill.
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