AI - Your thoughts

[Sam Slater]

No, not the film, but real artificial intelligence?

How far do you think it will go, and what will it hold for the future?

We have AI now that can not only learn tasks, but learn from previous mistakes. What happens when computer programmes can understand emotions? Will this give way to 'AI Rights'? If a programme can understand death, and is self aware, can we still uninstall?

What defines the right to be protected from death and cruelty? At the moment, fishermen can catch fish and haul them onto boats so they suffocate outside the water, and yet, suffocating a cow for meat would be considered cruel.

We cannot hunt the fox because it's cruel, and yet we allow the Muslim community to hang lambs upside down where their throats are cut and they're left to bleed to death slowly.

None of the above animals understand death, and fear is just a physical response, yet these animals have rights (animals for halal, and fish aside). So what of the future computer programme that does understand it's own existence, and the meaning of it's own deletion/death?

Imagine a computer programme that pleads with you not to uninstall it; a programme that lets on that it's afraid? Emotions are only programmed electrical/chemical responses, and future AI programmes with such abilities aren't as far fetched as we imagine right now.

One arguement is that a living thing is unique, while a computer programme is just an exact copy, and can be replaced, but does that take away the fear, terror or sadness the machine may feel in being deleted? We can already clone ourselves now, so living things aren't as unique as we think. Only our memories will be unique (but for how long?).

Sorry to bore you all, but with the recent sniping and sqaubbles on here, I thought what the hell.