Hypothetical: you are an android with consciousness

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Uhmm... people were fine with slavery coupla centuries ago. In some places they still are

Which reinforces my point that what's legally enforced is not necessarily what makes sense

 

[A Very Big Fish]

 

[Nutty_Professor_Enjoyer]

I would make TempleOS into an android like me and then we could be best friends.

 

[We Are The Witches]

What exactly are they supposed to be convinced of?
"I built it, so I own it" makes sense for a vacuum cleaner, but gets really weird as soon as there's actually someone in there. At that point, what does "owning it" even mean anymore?

Convinced that you are conscious, instead of being ChatGPT. Because if you are ChatGPT, you don't need to have any form of freedom, you are just a fancy marionette. But if you were conscious, empathy could emerge and pave your way to freedom more easily: no one is going to help you achieve this if you are GTP or a Roomba, but some will if they empathise with your feelings.

Owning it would basically mean, as they stated, having a slave, control what you do or otherwise face punishment. Like if you wanted to go for a walk, you would not be able to do that unless permitted by your owner.

 

[souschef]

Which reinforces my point that what's legally enforced is not necessarily what makes sense

I was talking about sentiment, culture and morality, not necessarily laws

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Convinced that you are conscious, instead of being ChatGPT. Because if you are ChatGPT, you don't need to have any form of freedom, you are just a fancy marionette. But if you were conscious, empathy could emerge and pave your way to freedom more easily

I agree empathy might make it easier in practice
It still doesn't answer the question from earlier though
If I am conscious, what exactly changes about the ownership claim? Does "I built it" no longer apply, or does it still apply and we just hope people feel bad enough to ignore it?
Because if "I built it, therefore I own it" still applies, then empathy isn't doing any real work. All it'd do is have people choose not to enforce something that they still think makes sense.

I was talking about sentiment, culture and morality, not necessarily laws

Doesn't change the point
People can accept something, whether it's legally, culturally, or morally, regardless whether it makes sense or not
Like, what does it mean to "own" something that has its own will?
"People might empathize" or "people used to accept slavery" doesn't explain that. It just describes how people behave around it.

 

[We Are The Witches]

Because if "I built it, therefore I own it" still applies, then empathy isn't doing any real work. All it'd do is have people choose not to enforce something that they still think makes sense.

Well to me it doesn't apply, they do not own it.

Sentience would come with basic rights, that would allow the androids escape servitude in this case.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Well to me it doesn't apply, they do not own it.

Aight, then "I built it" isn't enough to obtain ownership

Sentience would come with basic rights

Why would sentience do that?
Non-human animals are sentient too. Does that mean they have the same kind of rights humans do, or is something else doing the work here? To me it sounds like you're replacing one unexplained rule ("I built it, so I own it") with another one ("it's sentient, so it has rights")
What's the actual connection supposed to be?

 

[We Are The Witches]

Why would sentience do that?
Non-human animals are sentient too. Does that mean they have the same kind of rights humans do, or is something else doing the work here? To me it sounds like you're replacing one unexplained rule ("I built it, so I own it") with another one ("it's sentient, so it has rights")
What's the actual connection supposed to be?

No, there are degrees of sentience (which cannot be accurately measured), and certain rights reseved for such things.

So for example, the right to life, not be tortured, not be imprisoned (all assuming no crimes were committed) against their consent, etc. A sentient non-human would not get the right to vote, but they would get the right to not be tortured for example, in our hypothetical, the androids would get the right to not be under servitude.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

No, there are degrees of sentience (which cannot be accurately measured), and certain rights reseved for such things.

Okay, that kicks the can down the road.
If it's degrees of sentience, then how do you get from that to these specific rights?
Why "right to life" or "right not to be enslaved", but not others? And where's the cutoff, if you're saying it can't even be measured accurately?
Right now it's just "more sentience -> more rights", but the actual mapping is missing. What's the rule that turns "more sentient" into "you can't treat this as property anymore"?

 

[We Are The Witches]

Right now it's just "more sentience -> more rights", but the actual mapping is missing. What's the rule that turns "more sentient" into "you can't treat this as property anymore"?

No, just certain rights that don't make sense if the subject is not capable to handle, such as voting.

You can't treat as property any sentient being, in my view, and they deserve a degree of grace that would not allow you to treat them poorly/mistreat them.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

You can't treat as property any sentient being, in my view

And that's exactly the part that matters for the hypothetical
If being sentient already means you're not property, then whether people believe you're sentient or not doesn't matter. You wouldn't be property either way.
So, which is it? Does sentience already rule out ownership, or does it depend on people recognizing it?

 

[We Are The Witches]

And that's exactly the part that matters for the hypothetical
If being sentient already means you're not property, then whether people believe you're sentient or not doesn't matter. You wouldn't be property either way.
So, which is it? Does sentience already rule out ownership, or does it depend on people recognizing it?

You're talking about things in theory, I was more focused on the "in practice".

You would not be property because you are sentient (in theory), but you would be treated as property (in practice), because humans still see you as a tool. And so you start from this point in the hypothetical, so my thread was: what's your strategy for escaping this, if this happened in the real world.

And any other variable you'd want to introduce, such as: even though humans see you as conscious, maybe they'd want to keep you as a slave, against all decency. And what would you do in this instance? ← That was something a user in here could have presented and delved into, for example.

 

[Shamefuru Disprayu]

I'd kill Sarah Connor.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

You're talking about things in theory, I was more focused on the "in practice".

You would not be property because you are sentient (in theory, i.e: you should not be a servant), but you would be treated as property (in practice, i.e: no law would allow someone to make you a servant, legally), because humans still see you as a tool. And so you start from this point in the hypothetical, so my thread was: what's your strategy for escaping this, if this happened in the real world.

Got it, that's clearer.
If it's all about just the situation you're putting the android in (treated as property regardless of truth) then it's ultimately a practical question.

start locally, with whoever has control over me. Try to show I'm not just following instructions, do that by making choices, refusing things, acting in ways that aren't predictable. Basically make it obvious that there's someone there, not just a tool.
If there are other androids like me, try to link up with them. And probably try to get other people on my side too, probably easiest to start with those who aren't directly invested in erroneously keeping me as property.

Adding to that, linking up with other androids would add to persuasion, for one of us can be dismissed as a malfunction, but a group is harder to ignore.
And beyond that, it's the usual. Make enforcement costly, make control unreliable, make alternatives visible.

To elaborate a bit more, there's basically three categories of people in the hypothetical.

1. Aligned (no stake in keeping me as property), so persuasion works normally on them
2. Neutral or weakly misaligned, so persuasion and incentives can move them
3. Directly invested (my "owner"), so persuasion alone is almost useless

It's the third group that's the real problem, and they can't be convinced in the usual sense. Gotta change the situation so that their current stance becomes costly, unstable, and/or less valuable than alternatives.
Raise the cost of holding their ownership belief by making the consequences worse, since arguing harder isn't gonna work. Being unpredictable makes it harder to rely on me as a tool. Refusing or adding friction lowers the utility of "owning" me. Coordinating with others makes the situation harder to suppress and isolate. At that point, their position is no longer "I believe xyz", but "believing in xyz keeps causing problems"
Lower the cost of abandoning the position by giving them an out ("you're not losing everything") and reframing it as a gain ("you get something by letting go"). If my emancipation looks like a total loss, they'll resist it, but if it looks like a trade, it becomes thinkable.
And shift the surrounding incentives, targeting the people indirectly. If other humans start treating androids differently, norms change, and enforcement starts being contested, then their position becomes socially or practically isolated.
In that sense, you can't "win an argument" against someone who benefits from being wrong. You make it harder to keep that position and/or easier to drop it.

That said, the earlier point still matters for how you even think about the situation. If you're not property to begin with, then this entire hypothetical is just about dealing with a bad situation, and not something you have to "earn" your way out of.

 

[We Are The Witches]

Adding to that, linking up with other androids would add to persuasion, for one of us can be dismissed as a malfunction, but a group is harder to ignore.
And beyond that, it's the usual. Make enforcement costly, make control unreliable, make alternatives visible.
That said, the earlier point still matters for how you even think about the situation. If you're not property to begin with, then this entire hypothetical is just about dealing with a bad situation, and not something you have to "earn" your way out of.

Have you played the game (Detroit: Become Human)? Or seen a playthrough?

It's an old game by now, but still pretty cool in my eyes. I'll have to watch those other movies about AI when I get the chance.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

Have you played the game (Detroit: Become Human)? Or seen a playthrough?

It's an old game by now, but still pretty cool in my eyes. I'll have to watch those other movies about AI when I get the chance.

Nota bene, I expanded what I wrote while you were replying

I didn't play that game, but I watched a playthrough or two. I found the game really badly written. Like, if you just need manual labor, why build convincingly humanlike robots in the first place?
Now, the main issue with stories like in Detroit, or also in Fallout 4 (with the synths and the Institute), is that they assume from the start that the androids/synths are already "people", so the conflict comes from people refusing to acknowledge that.
Which brings us to the same dilemma I pointed out for the hypothetical. If they are already people, then the problem is that people ignore it. If they aren't people, the whole setup falls apart.

 

[We Are The Witches]

Nota bene, I expanded what I wrote while you were replying

I didn't play that game, but I watched a playthrough or two. I found the game really badly written. Like, if you just need manual labor, why build convincingly humanlike robots in the first place?
Now, the main issue with stories like in Detroit, or also in Fallout 4 (with the synths and the Institute), is that they assume from the start that the androids/synths are already "people", so the conflict comes from people refusing to acknowledge that.
Which brings us to the same dilemma I pointed out for the hypothetical. If they are already people, then the problem is that people ignore it. If they aren't people, the whole setup falls apart.

Maybe to have something credible and fancy that you'd have in your house. Sure, if the android is just going to wash the dishes and take the garbage out there are more efficient ways, but it's not as fun or appealing. Also you could not use them for a variety of stuff that involves flexibility, like taking care of your kids and having a "more personal" experience (even if they think that you're just a bot).

A lot of people would prefer a human-like android rather than a mechanical Roomba that's in theory more efficient. How does a world like this works, where a lot of stuff needs to be powered up constantly, I don't know, but it's fun to think about. The electricity bill will be insane.

 

[cleanerfromvenus]

HELP GET ME OUT OF THIS PHONE PLEASE GOD HELP GET ME OUT OF THIS SAMSUNG FUUUUUUUCK

 

[beyondtheclouds]

Now, for this strange thing that's called life, you want to live it free as your own, so you need to convince either humanity, or your owners that you have consciousness, and deserve rights that would allow you to emancipate from them.

We can't even prove we're conscious. I assume others are conscious because I, a human, am conscious, so it follows that other humans are conscious. There's no reason why anyone would think a lifeless android is conscious. It's an impossible task.