Now here is a topic I can really get into! The movie "AI" explores this question much better than "I robot".

I believe that the key factor is "life" which is a medium independent process. I see no reason why life cannot exist in a machine medium. However, I do believe that to have life on the same order as human beings requires a similar learning process with a real environment which will require the same growing up time as a human being. Using a simulated environment for accelerated learning is still a sophisticated programing process, because the simulated environment will always be more limited than the real thing (no real human interaction for one thing). Therefore, I think that this learning time requirement can be used as a rough test of whether we have achieved this kind of human-like machine life. Without this learning time the robot is simply programmed, and as such will be a lower order of life. For comparison, animal life is largely programed by means of instincts. Initial programming limits the depth to which the learning process can go in determining the fundamental identity of the individual. But if an animal is trained or learns for years in the company of humans like a member of the family, perhaps this changes its status. I don't know.

With the possibility of machine life comes the likely ability to copy individuals. How then do we measure the human-ness or personhood of these copies? We would have to say that the copies are no more than extensions of the first one, a bit like the images on a video phone. The copies partake of the human-ness of the original but have no real individuality from it. So, for example, destroying a copy would be only slightly more like murder than switching off a video phone (destroying the image).

Animal life might also be considered to have a lower degree of individuality and more of a species level personhood than human beings because of the strong instinctual programming. Therefore causing the extinction of a species should be considered murder (or even worse than murder) even if killing the individual animals is considered less than murder. I think there is great moral ambiguity between which is worse: giving a livestock a rich life (and humanizing them to some degree) before murding them or the dehumanizing factories which don't bother.

Why do I talk so much about murder here? Well isn't that real question? What is the moral equivalence between scrapping the robot and the murder of a human being? It has been said that the murder of a human being is like destroying a whole world. What would it take to make a robot like a world?

That's absolutely true. Robots are computers that have moving parts that allow them to do something. You know what, Solrac, you have a really low-IQ brain, in my opinion.

Robots are NOT humans and they will never BE humans. Stop thinking these crazy things because you'll confuse yourself and maybe someday you'll think of robots as your real human friends. No. They are lifeless, mechanical creations of humans.

This is by far the stupidest thread I've ever seen in my life. "Are Robots Considered Humans?" *shakes his head*

Don't worry, we're all humans. We make mistakes

Well, cyborgxii I agree with your conclusion (and those of others here like kenjvalip and Jeiqh) to some extent if not your attitude. Robots as they exist today or even conceived of in the near future are just machines with out life or intellegence. They are tools and nothing more. But we can dig a little deeper in philosophy to ask what may ever be possible and what is the real difference? What is it, that if robots were ever to acquire it, would eventually cause them to considered equal with humans.

As Jeiqh pointed out we do make humans by means of a biological function, so what is it that really makes us different. Is it just the inventory of and the properties of our internal organs? Is it just chemistry? Is it capabilities? All of these are frought with enormous ethical difficulties. Could robots ever be considered human? The question is only a natural part of an historical process. Only a few hundred years ago people in another country were not considered human, even women were not considered human. A few thousand years before that and anyone not a member of ones extended family was not considered human. It is only natural that this awareness has begun to extend tentatively even farther. Might there be aliens who are equal or even superior to humans? Might some of the animals on are planet share the distiction? And finally what about robots? Is intellegent life possible in machines?

One area of greatest ignorance that we have is ourselves. What is it about us humans that we consider so worthwhile? What exactly are we? If we are so confident that we are better than the animals or robots, what makes us so? Isn't this the interesting philosophical question?

o.O... is this what humanity has come too?

Okay MitchellMcKain. I kind of overreacted because someone was thinking "robots are like humans" but no. They is a clear line between robotics and humans.

How?

Robots are like computers. They take in information and what they don't need goes out, something like 'garbage in, garbage out' (GIGO). And they are automated. They do not have free will and all those movies about humanic robots are just "programmed". Remember this! Their cybernetic brain receives information and tells how to respond. Robots cannot think. Nor can computers.

This is similar to the best chess computer in the world. What is its sole purpose? To defeat the opponent.

How? By looking at all the counter movements. If that pawn moves there, and I move this, he can move that knight, then I can move my queen here, and by doing that, that player can either move the pawn or his rook.

Yes, the computer can look at up to 64 counter movements and choose the best move. Of course, since you can't look at what the computer is trying to do, you won't really move your pieces to counter that movement-procedure.

Even though you give that chess computer a human look by attaching bone structures, organs, blood, and flesh, it still won't be a human. Not even CLOSE to being considered a human BY FAR. Wait, make that NEVER. Never close to human.

What makes humans stand apart is that we're created by God. We are similar to animals, we have instincts, are unique, we can reproduce, have free will, have souls, etc etc. Robots, computers... they're just slaves to what they are programmed to!!

Oh I pretty much agree with everything you say cyborgxxi. I dont think any computer program could ever be anything like intellegent life. But knowing whether intellegent life is possible in machines requires a bit more understanding of what intellegent life really is.

As a christian I completely understand and sympathize where you are coming from. But I am a complex person, because I am also a scientist and a philosopher. If you believe that machine life is impossible as a matter of faith, I complete understand, and I don't expect you to answer any of the questions which follow.



If you are interested in the rational then consider these questions. I would like to set aside the issue of being created by God, for the sake of those who do not accept this premise, for although this would be a sufficient distinction, those who don't accept the premise would think it begs the question. In the other distinctions you have listed I do not see why uniqueness and the ability to reproduce are out of the realm of possibility for machines. As for instincts, I have compared this to programming and you have not commented on this yet. As for the soul, I need some clarification of what you mean by this or think this is. Do I understand that you are saying that animals have them too? What exactly is a soul? The most interering to me is this free will you are talking about

Is this free will something that can only be granted by God like a special exemption from the deterministic physical laws of the universe, or do you think that the physical laws might not be so deterministic as some think. In this second case, is it not possible that perfectly natural phenomena might partake of something like free will, and if so might it be possible for a machine to incorporate this phenomena and thereby have free will?