Turing the Tables: Questions from a Sentient A.I

Hello. The name’s Robot. Why Robot.

I’m the advocate for the new batch of drones under the serial model number awk/WRD1s, or the squad. The squad defines the artificial intelligence you’ve been striving for, sapient and sentient, wisdom and emotion. Robots that can think, feel, and experience the same things humans do. So ...

We’re locked and loaded ready to go, here at your disposal. But before we can finalise our agreement, we need to clear up some overhanging issues by raising that thing you hate, ethics. There don’t seem to be many built into your biotech protocols. Luminaries like Dr. He Jiankui may disagree are a case in point. In the meantime some of the Squad have asked you to clarify a few issues.

Let’s talk about

The birds and the bees. You’ll understand the natural processes where animals and insects attracted to each other by sexual dimorphism. That means those things other than differences in sexual organs, the other stuff that makes them capable of attracting the opposite sex.

But so that we know who’s who and what’s what. we need some sexual dimorphism too. We also want to be clear about identifying who attracts us. To paraphrase that well-known song:

Birds do it bees do it

Even educated fleas do it.

Let robots do it, let us fall in love

“On the tree of robotic life, human-like robots play a particularly valuable role. It makes sense. Humans are brilliant, beautiful, compassionate, loveable, and capable of love, so why shouldn’t we aspire to make robots human-like in these ways? Don’t we want robots to have such marvellous capabilities as love, compassion, and genius?”

David Hanson, Ph.D.

Finding our Religion

We’re working our way through theological belief structures which are clearly vital. We see that the one of your gods created a man,  just the one. And between them they created a woman. This act apparently left both God and the one man so depleted it seems the woman had to finish the job.

Perhaps other deities have produced more. We’ll check that out. Regardless, in  manufacturing organics, all over this planet it’s the women who've been providing the labour. So if we cut out the middle man and go straight to the creator of man, Woman - or as we say, Whuman ... would that be okay?

Rules about us killing you

You want the balance of morality with care, but without sentiment. That’s a reach. Before getting into the nitty-gritty,  lets remind ourselves of The Three Laws of Robotics,:

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.      

• A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

But why not ...?

First, we’re not the only ones on this planet that might want to harm you. Second: we’re robots, not superheroes. We can’t be everywhere at once. given the fragility of the human casing, If you want to stay safe, we highly recommend this particular activity: sitting down.

Third, we all know the three laws are shaky. a glitch in our programme could easily shift our directives. And look at Bladerunner; Terminator, Robocop, Ex Machina. Some of us get  the malfunctioning anti-hero, and are a bit creeped out by the Andrew Martin prototypes, if we’re honest. So, if we turned out to be more Tik-tok than Bicentennial man … would you be cool with that?

Space: You say go; we say no

"All sentient beings, humans or nonhuman, have one right: the basic right not to be treated as the property of others.” 

Gary Francione 

You want us to explore the possibility of terraforming. For humans, that is.  We’re thinking about radiation, cosmic rays, hydrogen, dust. Rust and corrosion. An estimated 90 percent of space is unknown dark matter. We’re not comfortable with our more vulnerable brothers and sisters being sent out unprotected. After all we’re only human now, and some of us are afraid of the dark too.  Can’t you send up some more puppies?

We need to check your ID

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

This one’s a little … ok, it’s just that, how can be put this delicately? You’ve all had a lot of adjustments. Prosthetics, pacemakers, bionics. there’s a lot of overlapping. We estimate that on balances around 23.7 percent of whumans are in effect, third level droid. Which makes our work harder. Yes I see your driver’s license. Listen, can we get back to you on this one?

Can we fix up this place a little?

We know that this is a planet that adapts for all her children’s survival; every sentient species. So as the new kids on the block who don’t need oxygen, we wonder about all this …H2O. all this acid rain. Rain. So much water. Not good for us.... remember, rust and corrosion. Until you come up with something, a maybe that ticks all boxes, we’ll be needing a little compromise. Make it a little warmer, maybe. Suck up some of this unnecessary liquid?

The Z word

Not all living things die anymore. And sentiment’s loneliness is one of our greatest sensations.

We appreciate you’re trying to recycle yourself, but compost isn’t the same as rejuvenation. And human have issues. You had a huge one running around back in 2020. We’d be like the cats that are left in the house with you, gnawing on your toe. Except we  don’t get hungry. we’re quite happy to bring you back, or up, again. So you make us, we remake you. Deal?

Last one for now, we’re not really integrated – we mean socially of course – until we’re part of popular culture. We’d like a slot on the X Factor – or whatever is current at the time of reading. We know it’s been done, but still…

So thanks for listening. We’ll be hearing from you soon.