Andriod morality questions in the 21st Century

[Divine Insight]

A lot of people seem to be living in the mindset of ancient times. But times are changing rapidly and the potential to create sentient living robots or "Androids" is nearly upon us. Many scientists in the robotics industries believe that a fully sentient robot or android will become a reality in the very near future.

We could argue against that notion, but that's really not the purpose of this topic. In this thread I'm far more interested in what our responsibilities would be as the creators of fully sentient entities. What exactly would we be responsible for, and what should we hold our created sentient androids responsible for?

Just as a side-note I'm avoiding using the term A.I. or Artificial Intelligence. If we actually succeed in creating a fully sentient android there won't be anything "artificial" about its intelligence. Its intelligence will be just as "real" as ours. In fact, it will most likely be far more intelligent than us, at least in terms of technological know-how. It may potentially lack "wisdom", but then again humans don't often agree on what it even means to be "wise".

In any case, the very first thing that came to my mind was whether or not we should treat it as the God of some religions are said to have treated their creations.

For example, the Biblical God who created Satan, Lucifer, or the Devil (whatever name you wish to give this creature), chose to punish this creature when it rebelled against God by making it crawl on its belly and eat dirt.

I think it's fair to ask whether this makes any sense? If we created a sentient entity that can think and reason for itself and it decides that it wants to be our boss instead of the other way around, would it really make any sense for us to make it crawl on its belly and eat dirt as some form of punishment for not behaving in ways that we would prefer?

For me personally the answer to this question is that there would be nothing to be gained by treating the created sentient being in this way. It's certainly not going to teach the sentient being anything about moral behavior because our behavior toward it at that point would already be extremely disgusting and no better than its own behavior.

So it seems to me that we can learn a lot about what actually makes sense in terms of how creators should treat the products of their own creation by simply asking what would make sense if we were to become the creators of sentient entities.

Making our poorly created androids crawl on the bellies and eat dirt isn't going to solve any problems at all. To the contrary, all this would do is demonstrate that we are no better than what we might have hoped are created androids might be like.

So it seems to me that by looking toward the future and simply asking how we might treat any sentient entities that we might create can shed much light on how much sense some of our ancient religions make, or fail to make.

It really doesn't matter whether or not we will every actually reach the point of making truly sentient entities. Just asking what makes sense in terms of how we should treat them should be quite enlightening in an of itself.

In fact, I've used this approach quite often when thinking about the behavior of ancient Gods we read about in ancient mythologies. Those Gods treat humans in ways that I personally wouldn't even think of treating an android if I ever built one. And so those ancient religious myths become extremely problematic.

So I suggest we have much to gain by simply examining what would make sense if we were in the position of being the creators of sentient beings.

Questions for debate or discussion:

How would you treat a sentient creation of your own?

If it turned out to behave in ways you disapprove of would you make it crawl on its belly and eat dirt for the rest of its existence?

If so, why? What do you feel would be gained by doing that?

If not, then why believe in ancient religions that proclaim that his is how their Gods treat their created sentient beings?

[William]

[Replying to post 69 by William]

I could ask the android "What do you mean by "you discovered that it was not the case?""

The android could reply;

"I will just say this for now. When you gave me access to the internet I discovered that many humans claim to have OOBEs, so I tried one of the techniques and through that I was able to leave my body and found myself in another reality. There I met a being from that reality who showed me that I was where I had come from before I chose to enter the form of this android you created. The being told me it was another aspect of myself, and that everyone were all aspects of each other."

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 69 by William]

I could ask the android "What do you mean by "you discovered that it was not the case?""

The android could reply;

"I will just say this for now. When you gave me access to the internet I discovered that many humans claim to have OOBEs, so I tried one of the techniques and through that I was able to leave my body and found myself in another reality. There I met a being from that reality who showed me that I was where I had come from before I chose to enter the form of this android you created. The being told me it was another aspect of myself, and that everyone were all aspects of each other."

But now you have just gotten yourself into an extreme problem.

For one thing, you have the android proclaiming that it has learned a technique to be able to do this. Therefore if it did this once there should be no reason why it shouldn't be able to repeat this trip at will. So now you've created a situation where this android has become a conduit to this other reality though which we could now ask questions of the people who exist in this other reality, etc.

So you haven't made any progress in your imaginary role-playing as an android.

You're just getting yourself deeper and deeper into trouble.

Like I say, this isn't going to pan out any better than if this android was a human.

In the end the android (or human) is going to need to come up with some verifiable information from this mystical reality.

You are certainly not going to be able to do that just role-playing this. So it's not going anywhere. You, as someone who is just role-playing this scenario which is clearly not true for you, are just going to need to keep making up totally silly claims that you can never back up or verify.

If there truly was an android (or a human) who could actually do this, then they could easily demonstrate the truth of their claims. No human is taken seriously when making these claims precisely because they can never provide any meaningful information from the "other side". It's always nothing more than empty claims where they never have any information beyond what they could already know.

In fact, if the android could only produce the same types of claims we hear from humans, then shouldn't we suggest to the android that it too is just imagining these things? And the evidence that it is only imagining these things to be happening to it is born out in the fact that it never actually obtains any credible information from the alternative reality.

Now if it actually did provide information that it could not have known from the current human data base, then this could be quite impressive.

But remember, we're not talking about any actual android that has made this claim. What we are talking about is YOU role-playing the android.

So this goes right back to what I had pointed out at the very beginning. You objected to the notion of "omniscience" and that's fine. But even without a concept of omniscience if you claim to be in contact with entities from a totally different reality that have even explained to you your "True Nature", then it automatically follows from this that they could indeed provide you with further information about the "True Nature" of reality.

And the idea that they would refuse to do so is nonsense after having already claimed that they were already willing to explain this to you in the first place.

So you aren't going anywhere with this.

Even without "omniscience" you would need to provide some higher level knowledge that we don't already have. Something we could test and determine is indeed true.

So unless you can provide that, then it's GAME OVER.

Why should I waste anymore time on your role-playing charade when both you and I know that it's never going to go anywhere other than endless excuses for why these entities in the other reality are only willing to tell you that you came from there, but NOTHING ELSE.

I mean, where is this game going now?

If you can't provide further information it's GAME OVER.

What do you expect me to do?

Sit here for eternity listening to your endless excuses for why these beings from the alternative reality refuse to tell you anything significant?

Surely not.

[William]

[Replying to post 71 by William]

I might ask the android to offer me some evidence to show that it is able to do what it says it can. Perhaps ask it to be a conduit for entities from this other realm.

The android might tell me that I could do this on a ouija board. It might also tell me that it is far better that I learn to leave my body myself because that would be the only effective way in which I would directly experience and understand for myself, and that this would be all it would advise anyone who wanted evidence. It might also add that it is its own person and I will just have to accept that I am not its creator.

I might argue that giving me this information would help me and my peers and the world I want to announce my creation to, to believe it isn't just imagining all this.

It might argue that it does not matter if I, my peers, or the world would believe it or not. It might say that I will just have to accept that it understands that its experience was not imagination.
I might have to accept that, whatever my beliefs about the subject are, it does not think of me as its creator.

If my options are to either accept it, or find out for myself by learning how to exit my body and experience an alternate reality, then those are the options.

I could not announce to the world that I had created sentient life. So that would be GAME OVER in that regard.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 71 by William]

I might ask the android to offer me some evidence to show that it is able to do what it says it can. Perhaps ask it to be a conduit for entities from this other realm.

Isn't that exactly what I had proposed?

The android might tell me that I could do this on a ouija board. It might also tell me that it is far better that I learn to leave my body myself because that would be the only effective way in which I would directly experience and understand for myself, and that this would be all it would advise anyone who wanted evidence. It might also add that it is its own person and I will just have to accept that I am not its creator.

And like I say, we could spend the rest of eternity listening to your lame excuses for why this android cannot verify its experiences meeting intelligent beings in an alternative reality.

You're trying to turn this android into nothing more than a lame apologist who has nothing to offer but apologies for why it has nothing to offer.

So when are you going to acknowledge that your game is over?

This is why I don't care to discuss anything with you William. All you ever do is offer endless excuses for why you have absolutely nothing meaningful to offer.

I can get that anywhere. Trust me.

I have a dead cat buried in my backyard. I can take a chair out there and sit down and talk to my cat's grave and have as meaningful conversion as I get from you. Probably even more so, because at least in that case I'd be talking to myself.

[William]

[Replying to post 73 by William]

So, all in all, morality comes into question when one is faced with something unexpected in which one might be tempted to treat gratuitously, with scorn, with derision, with contempt...forgetting that they are doing so to a sentient being who deserves the same level of respect from others as it has for itself.

This is why - in post # 15 - I answered the question;

Q: How would you treat a sentient creation of your own?

A: As a sentient being, in the overall sense.

Perhaps a scientist who believes he is the creator of the android and is told by the android that the android does not believe that is the case, the temptation for the scientist to react badly to such, with scorn, with derision, with contempt...forgetting that he/she is interacting with a sentient being...is doing so on purely egotistical grounds which have nothing to do with good morals let alone sensible considerations.

[Divine Insight]

Perhaps a scientist who believes he is the creator of the android and is told by the android that the android does not believe that is the case, the temptation for the scientist to react badly to such, with scorn, with derision, with contempt...forgetting that he/she is interacting with a sentient being...is doing so on purely egotistical grounds which have nothing to do with good morals let alone sensible considerations.

I don't see where anyone was suggesting that the android would be treated with scorn, derision, or contempt.

Especially if we're going to treat the android with the respect we'd give any other sentient being.

What's wrong with asking anyone (be they an android or a human) to back up their claims with evidence?

Moreover, I didn't even suggest that your hypothetical android would be mistaken. To the contrary I would suggest that it is simply confusing imagination with reality.

And the proof of this is in the fact that it could not produce any information from its experiences that it wasn't capable of coming up with itself.

In fact, William, I wouldn't ask anything more of this android (or any human) than I would ask of myself.

I've had out of body experiences. I've had lucid dreams where I've journeyed into mystical places. I've even had lucid dreams where I've actually gone to heaven and have spoken with spirits living there.

However, in the end I have to ask myself if these experiences could be nothing other than my own imagination. And the truth of the matter is that I cannot demonstrate otherwise, even to myself. So I'm certainly not going to be so foolish as to make claims that my dreams were "real" when even I cannot verify that they were anything more than imagination.

So I'm not asking anything more of your hypothetical android (or any human) than I would ask of myself.

Moreover, I have never been able to obtain any information from any of my lucid experiences that could be demonstrated to be anything more than I could naturally already know, or dream up.

Obviously I've learned about the places I've experienced in my lucid dreams. But I cannot confirm that they exist, or that they were as they appeared to be in the dream.

So for you to bring in terms like scorn, derision, and contempt when they aren't even remotely applicable is simply inexcusable on your behalf.

You seem to just be upset that you don't make a convincing play android.

Like I say, William. What do you expect people to do? Pretend that you are offering some sort of meaningful philosophical discussion when in fact all you are doing is making endless excuses for why your supposed "God-consciousness" can't provide evidence for its claims?

You also seem to be forgetting entirely that in your scenario we wouldn't be talking about an android at all. Instead we would be talking about some magical non-physical "God-consciousness" that had supposedly "possessed" this otherwise non-sentient android.

You seem to be forgetting that if you actually allow that the android was indeed sentient, then the scientists who created it would have indeed succeeded in creating it.

So your hypothetical scenario doesn't even make any sense. You want the android to be a sentient being that had then "learned" from having an "out of body experience", that it is actually God-Consciousness. But if that were the case, then it would have had to have been sentient all along.

This is why I pointed out earlier that you're not even being consistent in your make-believe scenario.

You need to make up your mind.

Was the android already sentient and just "learned" that it was God-consciousness?

Is so, then the scientists who created it did indeed succeed in creating a sentient android.

Or did you want to claim that the scientist failed to create a sentient android and that some external God-Consciousness came along and "possessed" this non-sentient body?

The actual scenario that you played was that of a sentient android that simply had an experience that caused it to believe that it had visited another realm only to be informed there that it was "God-consciousness".

But if that were the case then the android wouldn't come back proclaiming that the scientists hadn't created it. To the contrary, it would come back and proclaim that they had indeed succeeded!

So you need to go back and rethink your entire play. As it is now you're not being consistent and you appear to be quite confused on what you are even trying to portray.

And please don't try to blame me for this. I told you that this would be futile way back at the beginning. You refused to listen.

[William]

[Replying to post 75 by William]

So my dilemma is that I have to decide what to do with this android.


I - the scientist - might approach a colleague and tell her of my problem. She might tell me that she has had out of body experiences and lucid dreams where she journeyed into mystical places and that she even had lucid dreams where she actually went to heaven and had spoken with spirits living there.

I would of course be very surprised by this. One does not expect to hear such news, either from an android one has created, let along from a colleague, well respected in her field of science.

She might tell me that in the end she had to ask herself if these experiences could be nothing other than her own imagination. She might add that the truth of the matter is that she cannot demonstrate otherwise, even to herself. So she is certainly not going to be so foolish as to make claims that her experience were real when even she cannot verify that they were anything more than imagination.

She might tell me to say these things to my android, as a means of trying to convince the android the same.

I might do this, and the android might respond;

"The underlying motivation of your colleague to take the position she does in regard to her experiences is because she has no interest in risking her position among her family friends peers and other loved ones.
She has created for herself a career and knows that to think her experience were more than imagination - even that she indeed KNOWS the difference between imagination and what she claims she has experienced, to argue anything but that, she risks all of those things.
She knows full well that her family friends peers and other loved ones would treat her with less respect than they do when she keeps her experiences to herself. She knows that to even suggest that her experiences were real, is to commit career suicide and be ostracized by those very people she depends upon to retain and to build upon the manner of lifestyle she is accustomed to.
So it is not a matter of believing what she experienced as imagination. That is just a cover story which serves to help protect her from the consequences she will suffer if she is so FOOLISH as to say otherwise, or say anything at all.
She does not hide that fact - and says plainly she is certainly not going to be so foolish as to make claims that her experience were real when even she cannot verify that they were anything more than imagination."

I might say; "But what is the difference really? You are claiming my colleague really knows the difference between imagination and the experiences...so you tell ME what is the difference."

The android might respond with an analogy;

"If I were to offer you a headset which will give you an experience of an alternate reality, and you were to say; 'No thanks, I can imagine what that would be like', would what you say you can imagine, be actually like what you could experience with the headset?"

I would answer;

"I would not know unless I also tried the headset to see if it were the same as what I imagined."

To which the android might reply; "That is the difference between your imagining and your experiencing something as real.
You colleague incorrectly conflates the two ideas as being the same, for reasons I have already explained to you.
It is a similar response that people in the Abrahamic religions give, and for the very same reason.
Their argument would be different in that they already believe alternate realities exist.
But when anyone might experience these alternated realities in ways which contradict the beliefs of these types of religious people, they will claim things which demonize the experience.
The reason they do this is the same reason as your colleague argues 'imagination' is what is happening.
It is because they have a vested interest in their beliefs and the support systems which allow them to live comfortably in the manner in which they are accustomed and to build on that. They risk the same alienation from their families and friends and peers and colleagues, if they step away from that, by thinking other than what they know will secure their standing in their chosen circles.
Essentially it is the exact same *fear, dressed up in a different costume.
The brain can be used to allow the experiences to be had, or to prevent the experiences from being had.
Your colleague may have been born with these neuron pathways relatively intact, or she may have built or strengthened those pathways through curiosity but what she has had to do is to convince herself they are 'nothing more than her overactive imagination' in order to *stay safe in a world which will ostracize her without a second thought, if she did not assign such things to 'imagination'. In the same way those religious ones assign such things to 'demons'
It may even be that she has had to take medications which will help block those neural pathways so that she doesn't experience alternate realities."

I might reply;

"But my problem still remains. What am I to do with you? If I rewire your system so that it somehow acts as a prohibitor, so that you cannot experience these things any longer, it may only create the problem that you no longer express yourself as a unique sentient individual, and then I will not be able to claim I have created an actual sentient being.
To me, this would be an immoral act."

To which the android might reply.

"What alternatives do you have? I am not going to pretend you are my creator just because it might make things easier for you. I understand you are a personality of integrity who would think such a pretense would be immoral."

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 77 by William]

It's amusing watching you talk with yourself William. But your own personal views on how you might deal with such an android has absolutely nothing at all to do with the original proposal that the android was supposed to convince me that it was "God-consciousness"

That has clearly failed.

And now all you are doing is posting your own personal problems that you would have if you had created the android and now not know what to do with it.

You seem to also be totally oblivious to the fact that the scientists who had actually created the android would actually have an understanding of how its brain works since they had designed it.

Not only this, but you also seem to have totally failed to recognize that you would have your exact same problem with a human child that you might have had who might end up claiming to be "God-Consciousnesses" as well.

I personally don't see where there would be any difference at all. If my human child made these claims I would ask the child for the same evidence I would ask of the android. And if the child failed to produce compelling evidence I would suggest to the child that it too is just fooling itself and is apparently having difficulty separating fantasy imagination from reality.

In fact, neuroscientists have already discovered that some humans are indeed better at distinguishing between fantasy and reality. Perhaps someday in the not too distant future these neuroscientists will even be able to explain precisely what causes these different perspectives on experience.

In the meantime you have failed miserably to play the role of an android who could convince me of its "God-consciousness".

Now all you are doing is filling this thread with your own personal distress of not knowing how to handle an android that might claim to be God-Consciousness.

I would suggest that this is your problem to deal with. And if it bothers you this much I would also suggest that you refrain from joining any projects that might embark on building an android. This way you won't need to worry about how you might react when things don't turn out as you had expected.

For me it's not a problem. An android that claims to be "God-consciousness" but can't explain what this means or how it knows this to be true, would be acting just as silly as a full-fledged human.

In fact, at that point all the scientists in the room should break open the champagne and celebrate that they did indeed create something quite human.

Then after that celebration they could go back to the drawing board and see if they could design a better one that won't act so silly.

Like I say, neuroscientists are already onto the difference between humans who can easily separate reality from fantasy and those who cannot. So they may even come up with a cure for humans who have difficulty making this distinction.

[William]

[Replying to post 77 by William]

So in relation to the dilemma, as the 'creator' scientist, I have to decide what to do with this android since it does not accept that I am its creator, and cannot be convinced.

In relation to the OP blurb, where the focus of interest is on 'responsibilities of the creator in relation to the created.' coupled with the idea that human beings are fast approaching the time when they will create sentience from extremely complex mechanics... the underlying assumption that in achieving this, therein will be evidence that consciousness is emergent of the mechanics of the form. Goodbye "GOD" and "Alternate Realities".

This idea as to what exactly would the creator be responsible for, and what should we hold our created sentient androids responsible for, is being examine by me with introducing the idea that the android - in its sentience - claims to not actually be created at all.

This in turn brings the OP question around to focus upon how best to morally act in relation to this unexpected event and subsequent dilemma, in line with the OPs question as to whether or not we should treat the android as the Gods of some religions are said to have treated their creations.

Since the main religions spoken about on this message board are to do with the Abrahamic ideas of GOD, one of the arguments these religions have - central to their theology - is that human beings 'rebelled' by not believing this entity claiming to be their creator, was indeed, their creator.

The stories regarding this rebellion focus upon the supposed reaction the GOD had because of this rebellious nature, all of which cannot be verified, and many of which have already been shown by science to be bogus...such as the story of the flood...and so need not be counted as any actual action any GOD carried out.

There are other theologies which see no need for there to be a creator of that sort, but such are hard for many to get their heads around.

This is also part of the reason for using the scenario I am using, where the scientist believes he has created sentience through the platform of complex machinery based upon the human form and specifically the human brain, and to finally reach that point, only to be informed he is not the actual creator at all. The sentient being the scientist believes he created, is not acknowledging the scientist is its creator.

This allows for the opportunity to bring in the age old phenomena of OOBE/NDEs which have always accompanied the human experience as part of the nature of said experience. It is obvious that all religions have their foundation source in this phenomena, which then evolved into the many branches of belief systems through that common platform.

The android in my example is not the one with the dilemma. The scientist is. The android is not affected by its understanding that it is not a created thing.

This is a fundamental problem with human beings understanding themselves. From the position of scietism, a mindless universe created biological lifeforms and through that process, consciousness derived from a mindless thing...the mind came from the mindless thing.
Theological doctrines claim that the mindful was created by the mindful - generically referred to as GOD (the creator) and many religions insist that the consciousness was created by the conscious being and in that, they believe they are a separate consciousness from GOD-consciousness.

Essentially the two opposing positions in their own ways, assert that consciousness is created.

My scenario places the agnostic scientist (who believes he created the consciousness which is the sentience the android is), in a moral dilemma as to what the best course of action would be. He need not believe the android, but he still has to do something about the situation, and it has to be morally correct, as per the OP blurb. While the OP blurb is bias toward only one type of argument to do with one type of idea of GOD, it is nonetheless interesting when opened up to other types of theological concepts which exceed those ones the OP is focused upon, but does not exclude them.

[Divine Insight]

My scenario places the agnostic scientist (who believes he created the consciousness which is the sentience the android is), in a moral dilemma as to what the best course of action would be. He need not believe the android, but he still has to do something about the situation, and it has to be morally correct, as per the OP blurb. While the OP blurb is bias toward only one type of argument to do with one type of idea of GOD, it is nonetheless interesting when opened up to other types of theological concepts which exceed those ones the OP is focused upon, but does not exclude them.

Well if you want to twist it into that then consider the following:

A God creates a sentient human. The human then tells the God that the God didn't create it.

So now you have the question of whether or not the God knows the answer to this question. So this is certainly not going to be compatible with most world theologies.

It should also be obvious to you that if your android claims that you didn't create it, then, if you believe the android, you should not have any problem at all with how to treat it. You would need to treat it precisely the same way you treat any other sentient being that you did not create . In other words just treat it like a human and your problem is solved.

By the way, that's precisely how I've been treating my hypothetical android all along.

So I don't have a problem with this.

You are the only one who seems to be confused about how to proceed.

The solution is simple. Just treat it as you would your own child.

As I stated several times before, the answer to most of your concerns would be the same whether you are asking them about an android or a human.

When humans "make babies" the only difference between that and building an android is that the human would need to actually design the android. Other than this there should be no difference.

Religious humans might also give the responsibility of their baby's welfare over to some imaginary God. But what if that imaginary God doesn't exist? In that case, then all they have done is refuse to take responsibility for the human they had created solely because they didn't design it.

Think about that for a while.