Here's an idea.
At some point in the future we might
become legitimately worried about the well-being of robots.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So we're in the future and you're walking down the street.
Maybe you're on your way to the future store.
It's a beautiful day when suddenly someone crossing
the street gets hit by a car.
You hear the screech of tires, a scream, maybe it was theirs.
And a thud.
You rush over to the person who was hit there
on the ground writhing, unable to express themselves or get
up.
And that's when you realize that they are not a person.
Or maybe more specifically they're not a human being.
They are a robot.
A very human-looking autonomous machine.
Does your panic subside?
Are you no longer concerned?
Or is nothing different?
Robot or not, they need help?
[ACCIDENT SOUNDS AND YELLING]
Furthermore, is the driver at fault?
Have they destroyed property or have they
injured and potentially killed a non-human person?
All of these questions surround what you could generally
categorize as a moral sense towards technology.
One half of this equation concerns the moral agency
of things like artificial intelligence and robots.
Do they even have agency?
Can they act morally?
We're going to talk about the other half of the equation--
moral patientcy.
In what situations and at what point
do robots, technology, and artificial intelligence
become the subjects of moral concern?
When should we worry about them?
When should their interests be placed alongside ours?
Or, at the very least, be given serious consideration?
MALE SPEAKER: Help computer.
Now if you're like most people, your first reaction
to this question is, what?
Probably whatever machines you have in your life--
no matter how quote, unquote, smart or quote,
unquote, charming they are-- you never
really worry about their feelings.
MALE SPEAKER: I hate you.
When you drop your computer or phone
you wince not because you have literally hurt them
but because you have potentially damaged
a useful and expensive object.
And as fun and funny as your Roomba is,
it really is nothing more than a particularly smart vacuum
cleaner.
And cat transportation system.
Though-- and this is true-- my grandfather
has taken to calling his Roomba Sylvester after Sylvester
the cat because, in his words, it sleeps most of the day, only
ever gets up to eat, and when it's done
goes right back to its favorite spot.
I'm not about to make some hasty generalizations based
upon a joke that my grandpa tells about his floor robot.
But for real, even though our technology doesn't
express things--
I have no particular desire to discuss the matter.
--it's still expressive of things from our perspective.
We anthropomorphize it.
We give it human qualities in the same way
we do with our pets.
FEMALE SPEAKER: Good boy.
But when we see our pets expressive of things,
it's built atop this complex idea of what an animal is.
It has feelings, desires, needs.
It's alive, which, yeah, it's a simple word but a complicated
concept.
I am alive.
Yes.
When a pet suffers or stops being alive, it's a tragedy.
When a computer malfunctions or dies, it's inconvenient.
You might cry out of stress or frustration,
but not out of a sense of loss.
You will not mourn.
I wonder if we'll ever have that feeling, empathy or regret
or pity, for a machine.
And if so, at what point?
MALE SPEAKER: I need him.
What do you need him for?
MALE SPEAKER: He's my friend.
At what point will we look at a machine
and feel bad because it's suffering,
because it has a need that we can't address,
because it and not its function is gone.
Batteries not included.
The answer might be never, especially
if your position is that technology in any form
is only ever a tool.
John Searle's Chinese room thought experiment,
for instance, helps here.
It goes like this.
So you're in a locked room and someone is passing messages
to you written in Chinese through the gap
underneath the locked door.
The problem being don't know Chinese.
None whatsoever.
But luckily, in the room with you,
you have a set of instructions written in English or whatever
language you speak that instruct you on how to respond
to those messages in Chinese.
In Searle's words, you would be able to correlate
one set of formal symbols with another set of formal symbols.
To the people passing those messages
to whom you are responding in Chinese based
upon the rules written in front of you,
it would appear as though you speak Chinese.
But none of this means that you understand it.
In this thought experiment, you are a computer.
Computers can follow rules and perform actions,
but that doesn't mean that they understand them.
Computers can't think.
They do not have consciousness.
This fact removes technology-- androids,
artificial intelligence, robots-- from moral concern
for most people.
No consciousness, no thinking, no feeling, no pain,
no suffering.
Moral patientcy rescinded.
There's a lot of criticism for this line of reasoning.
Like, what is consciousness anyway?
We used to think that animals didn't have it and-- whoops.
And also if a complaint is that technology is just
following rules without understanding
the meaning of the rules, doesn't that also describe us?
Isn't the existence of religion a science and a philosophy
and explicit admission that we don't know what the rules mean?
In David J. Gunkel's "The Machine Question"--
which, by the way, if this kind of thing interests
you is so good and was basically the basis for this episode.
In it, he writes, Western conceptions of morality
customarily consist in a systematic rules of behavior
that can be encoded like an algorithm
and implemented by different moral agents
in a number of circumstances and situations.
There are, in short, program instructions
that are designed to direct behavior and govern conduct.
Take, for instance, the Ten Commandments.
And also, sure, computers are built by people.
But aren't people also built by people?
Basically I'm just going through all
of the defenses for Commander Data
from that one episode of Star Trek where he goes to court.
We've all been dancing around the basic issue.
Does Data have a soul?
I don't know that he has.
I don't know that I have.
But really, when the chips are down
or the cards are flipped or whatever gambling
metaphor you like for there being some kind of finality
or tragedy confronting the life of a piece of technology,
is this really what we're going to be thinking about?
Whether or not this thing does or does not possess
what is clearly definable as consciousness
or as feeling actual pain?
Whatever that is?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I don't know.
It's hard to say.
The point at which this is a real question where robots
are such a part of our lives that they
are potentially worthy of real concern is very far away.
But I will say this.
In that Star Trek episode I was legit worried about
and rooting for Data.
During Roy Batty's Tears in the Rain Monologue
in "Blade Runner," I completely buy
that this replicant has seen some stuff.
--people wouldn't believe.
And as a side note, Rutger Hauer
has said of that line, which he partially
improvised, that the replicant in the final scene, by dying,
shows Deckard what a real man is made of.
But probably all of my feels are because Data really
is a person, Brent Spiner.
Roy Batty is Rutger Hauer.
And they are in works of fiction,
the very premise of which is that I accept
certain untrue things as true.
But then what about Tamagotchi or Sea
Man or even Animal Crossing?
Technologically constructed life where
you possess a certain amount of responsibility.
MALE SPEAKER: Congratulations to me.
I'm now a homeowner.
The Tamagotchi is sold as a pet.
My girlfriend hasn't turned on our DS in months
because of how guilty she feels about the probable state
of our town.
That's not really moral concern.
She's not legitimately worried.
If she were she would turn on the DS
and pull up all of the weeds.
And I would too for that matter.
But maybe it shows, in some measure,
how we could eventually have or be
convinced to have legitimate concern
or worry for technology.
Like I wonder if my grandfather ever feels even
a little bit guilty about not leaving enough dirt
on the ground for Sylvester.
Oh, you're hunger.
What do you guys think?
Will machines ever become moral patients?
And if so, at what point?
Let us know in the comments.
And I have seen subscriber buttons glitter
in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate.
So what if we just put all of the bits on a bus
because buses are a common carrier
and then that problem is solved?
Let's see what you guys have to say about net neutrality.
First things first, we had an awesome week at Vid Con.
Thanks to everybody who came to panels,
who came to the meetup, who just stopped and said hi.
It was so great to meet you.
And I got to hang out with some of my friends and YouTubers
who I really look up to.
And there's actually-- we have some video proof
of that in the works.
So next week's episode of Idea Channel
is going to be an extra special episode.
Not like "Degrassi" extra special.
Like as special as Idea Channel would get.
But still very special.
OK.
So now, on to comments.
The TheAirtar says that internet service should absolutely
be common carrier but that if you
want it to be a public utility that comes with its own
a whole other set of troubling factors,
one of them being that if networks aren't unbundled then
the choice-- which, right, is not always a choice of where
you live-- might automatically mean that your internet is just
always going to be provided by this one company.
Related, GalidGanef and Emil Jacobson
point out that common carrier doesn't
solve a more basic problem, which
is the lack of competition as far as ISPs are concerned.
And, yeah, like if networks were to be unbundled then
that means that people could get access to the infrastructure
without having to build it, which is not the case right
now.
And they linked to-- and a lot of other people linked
to-- this Ars Technica post.
So we'll put a link to that in the description too.
To anywibes and everyone else wondering
how this kind of thing affects people
who don't live in the United States,
well, first things first, net neutrality is a concern
and should be a concern in any place where there is internet.
As far as I know, Europe is much more protective
of this kind of thing than the United States
is, though I could be wrong.
If I am wrong, someone please correct me.
But also, if you think about our example
that we provided of the person, the girl trying to develop what
would be the next Facebook, right?
If her success is limited by access throttled
by internet service providers, right, that effectively
eliminates what could be a global service.
So in that sense, that is another sense in which
this kind of thing could effect the global internet and not
just the United States internet.
Jacob Hamblin and GalidGanef have a really great back
and forth about the purpose and utility of regulation
when it comes to ISPs.
So I should check this-- check this out.
I will put a link to this comment and all the other ones
in the doobly doo.
Jason Perry wonders whether or not
the internet should be classified as something else
entirely, not a utility like water or electricity, not
a common carrier, but just an entirely different thing.
And this, I have no answer to this and I will not pretend to.
But this does make me think of a wonder that I have always had,
which is I wonder if the future of the internet and the future
of libraries as sort of common goods are somehow intertwined.
I have always-- that thought is constantly just floating around
in the back of my head just in there.
To Mario Castro, thank you for asking.
I am just very worried about the internet.
I'm from there.
It's my hometown.
I'm worried.
Rockin Out.
This makes me sad.
Not because you're leaving-- well,
I mean I am sad that you're leaving.
But that's your choice.
It's because this means that I have failed in my attempt
to convince you that when you hear an opinion that
is the opposite of your own, you should try to engage it and try
to have a conversation with it.
Maybe I was too dismissive of the market. don't know.
Hal Gailey response to my comment
about the market by saying that it is disingenuous simply
because the existence of what anybody
would describe as a market in this space
is very, very arguable.
And this is a really great and insightful comment.
So thanks for writing this, Hal.
Hey, AnthonySandwich10, I don't think
you need to watch the internet to get swag tutorials.
You live with Cal Chuchesta, the world's foremost expert
on swag.
But for all of the rest of us, yes.
Let's get them while they're neutral.
This week's episode was brought to you
by the hard work of these subjects of moral concern.
We have a Facebook and IRC and a sub
[INAUDIBLE] that links in the doobly doo.
A one day late happy Canada Day to our Canadian viewers
and subscribers.
We are very sorry for having missed it.
And the tweet of the week comes from Luke
in all caps who points us towards a video documenting
people's reactions to being filmed
without their consent in public.
It is both scary, fascinating, and engrossing.
Yeah.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
And for this week's record swap we
will be replacing Joni Mitchell's "Blue"
with Eliane Radigue's "Feedback Works," which I actually
got from Amoeba Music while visiting LA for Vid Con.
So, you know, it all comes around.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We'll fix that later.
Anyways, adios, Joni Mitchell and welcome Eliane Radigue.