Poll: Would you own a servant (or "slave", for the dramatic)?

[DeimosMasque]

I've been reading this thread since it started and all I can think the whole time... Every time is that the question was answered perfectly in Star Trek The Next Generation... Twice in the same episode. Measure of a Man. In it the Android, Data was viewed as property of Starfleet even though he was Sapient and sentient. A trial was held to determine his legal status.

If he lost he would be refused his right to resign from Starfleet and have to report to a Science Institute to be dismantled with no assurance that he could be reactivated after the fact. All so that a quasi-military organization could make tens, hundreds, thousands, as many as required of Disposal People. Because if he wasn't sapient and sentient who cared what happened to him.

Most who watched the show remember Picards defense.

Many don't remember Gunian's contrabution to it. Why Picard decided what he did.


Couldn't find a video a transcript will have to do

Guinan: Consider that in the history of many worlds, there have always been disposable creatures. They do the dirty work. They do the work that no one else wants to do because it's too difficult or too hazardous. And an army of Datas, all disposable... You don't have to think about their welfare, you don't think about how they feel. Whole generations of disposable people.
Capt. Picard: You're talking about slavery.
Guinan: Oh, I think that's a little harsh.
Capt. Picard: I don't think that's a little harsh, I think that's the truth. But that's a truth that we have obscured behind a... comfortable, easy euphemism: 'Property'! But that's not the issue at all, is it

So to answer simply no I would not own another Sapient , sentient being no matter how much they wanted to serve because doing so would infringe on their rights as sentient, Sapient beings

 

[DeimosMasque]

Is artificially selecting members of a species with higher oxytocin count and pro-human behaviors the same thing? If our pets or farm animals talked would they be slaves?

Possibly. I am reminded of a part of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The second book the restaurant at the end of the universe. Where Arthur Dent is put face to face with a Sapient cow that wants to be eaten. And his decision is he'd rather have the salad.

When it's revealed that the salad is more Sapient and sentient then the cow he finds himself ordering nothing.

And to answer your earlier question

I have owned a lot of pets over the years. Dogs cats and other. And while they seem to be self-aware I've never considered one of them both Sapient and sentient. Nor have I ever treated as slaves for my amusement. Every pet I've ever had, had their own life and their own choices. The worst thing I've ever done to a pet is told them they could not go outside so they wouldn't be hit by a car.

I do not trust them to no scratch and poope nor do I try to make them act human. Even then I recognize that Captain Sisco, Midinite Loki, Buggy, Tippie, both Homers, Fluffy, Baker, Pretty Boy, Shadow, Motley, Abu Stance, Noisy, Leroy, Squek, Monkey and Goose were not part of my family.

They weren't Sapient but they still mattered to me and my family

 

[Elfgore]

Yeah, no. Not in a million years. I could be feed all the crap that they said about how they "love" to serve and it "completes" them and I would still be very disturbed having that much power over anything with that level of sentience.

 

[Frankster]

super late reply snip

Well let's make it clear for starters I'm REALLY not fond of having a sentient robot for a servant, too much scifi has drilled me well into the dangers of that... So this wouldn't be my idea, I'd much rather my robot servants be as brainless as possible.

But the problem with sentient robots if we have them, is that you can bet someone at sometime is going to want to "free" those robots, you only have to look at this thread to see some examples. Some people might do it out of a sense of morality (they are slaves! we must free them! Or save them from their mean master!), some might do it for "love" (this was OPs case), some might even do it for nihilism, but point being it's practically inevitable some mofo is going to want to "free the robots".

I do not fathom what the ultimate purpose of such an act would be since it would depend on the person (in the examples given above, it would be to "free" the robots so they could think for themselves without the constraints of their programming binding them, so that they could reciprocate the feeling of love and because humans suck, and for long live our robot overlords reasons respectively), but I greatly fear the results.

The scenarios you describe are probably among the most positive outcomes, I'm all too scared that an AI with 0 constraints on it and without a sense of morality enforced into it would just decide that our species of meatbags is taking up too much inefficient space and resources and should just be replaced..

Also sorry for late reply ><

 

[Arnoxthe1]

In that case, technically, you already do. Your computer works endless hours for you and never says a word of compl-

Oh... Well... Can't have everything I guess.

 

[Abomination]

Am I limited to having only one?

Because, I would be keen to have several so I can guarantee reproduction and longevity of the servile group.

Looking forward, won't this essentially be robots with rudimentary AI? Is Tony Stark's Jarvis not a slave? What of horses, working dogs, guard geese (yes, a real thing) etc.? Intelligence to the threshold of sentience?

 

[Floppertje]

These things always creep me out so much. Every so often you'll come across something that would be pretty bad in real life but it's somehow okay because of reasons and they really want this, you guys. Sort of how any criticism about asari in Mass Effect being just a race of exclusively hot blue chicks is parried with 'but they don't even have the concept of male or female so it's not sexist'.
Yeah, that's true, but that doesn't change the fact that the writer chose to write that reason in. So how does that make it any better. Or Quiet's 'she breathes through her skin' bullshit.