Maxim 1. Everything is a person and everything has the rights of a person.
The question has been settled. HAL is a person. Number Five is alive! Roy Batty died for your sins. The Doctor from Voyager isn't just a hologram. Find me one instance of a Turing-question in science fiction film that does not resolve the question in favor of the personhood of a construct. R.U.R. answered the question in 1920 and we're still getting the same answer today.
Why?
1. Science fiction is allegorical. We use it to make a commentary about our own world and in our world "people are people" (tips hat to Depeche Mode). Science fiction tries to get us to be better in terms of inclusivity and the robot/computer is a convenient stand-in for the marginalized "other." What would the allegorical message be if they didn't turn out to be persons?
2. It's a more interesting if the AI turns out to be "real" rather than an illusion. We go to Science Fiction for fantasy, not to find out that we've been Scooby-Dooed by some Turk or Chatbot.
Why this is this concerning?
Allegory is now reaching back around to literality. Our collective subconscious has been programmed to accept that robots are people. And now that Turing-capable Chatbots are appearing, it's impacting mental health. See this Reddit thread or this news story. We've biased ourselves to be robotic Timothy Treadwells, seeing humanity in human simulations. For better or worse, we've been dreaming that the first bot that walks like a duck and quacks like a duck will be a true duck.
The question has been settled. HAL is a person. Number Five is alive! Roy Batty died for your sins. The Doctor from Voyager isn't just a hologram. Find me one instance of a Turing-question in science fiction film that does not resolve the question in favor of the personhood of a construct. R.U.R. answered the question in 1920 and we're still getting the same answer today.
Why?
1. Science fiction is allegorical. We use it to make a commentary about our own world and in our world "people are people" (tips hat to Depeche Mode). Science fiction tries to get us to be better in terms of inclusivity and the robot/computer is a convenient stand-in for the marginalized "other." What would the allegorical message be if they didn't turn out to be persons?
2. It's a more interesting if the AI turns out to be "real" rather than an illusion. We go to Science Fiction for fantasy, not to find out that we've been Scooby-Dooed by some Turk or Chatbot.
Why this is this concerning?
Allegory is now reaching back around to literality. Our collective subconscious has been programmed to accept that robots are people. And now that Turing-capable Chatbots are appearing, it's impacting mental health. See this Reddit thread or this news story. We've biased ourselves to be robotic Timothy Treadwells, seeing humanity in human simulations. For better or worse, we've been dreaming that the first bot that walks like a duck and quacks like a duck will be a true duck.