"...sentient metamorphs had full rights under the law, whether they descended from [homo sapiens] or not. Sophotects did, which could not really be said to have any ancestors - if 'rights' in any traditional sense bore any meaning for inorganic intelligences..." (p. 67)
Of course "rights" bears a recognizable meaning in this context. A self-conscious entity, whether organic or inorganic, should at least have the right to remain in conscious existence as long as it wants to.
Remarkably, Isaac Asimov's Robot Stories never address this issue. Their robots are conscious and rational and can experience distress, yet remain property that its owners can destroy at any time. Asimov deduced every implication of the Laws of Robotics but never addressed robot rights.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
You're right! And I never thought of that before, what was the civic status of those mobile AIs, robots? We never see discussed in Asimov's stories the question of what were the rights of robots.
At most, we see one or two robots, Stephen Byerley (assuming I got the name right) and R. Daneel Olivaw (much later in the Robots/Foundation timeline) masquerading as human beings.
Ad astra! Sean
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