When does a robot become human

[WanderingFool]

When I see actual tears after I beat if for not making my sammich right.

I think the moment a robot has a spontaneous emotional reaction to something is the moment it becomes something more than a Robot. It will never be a human, but it will occupy that gray middle ground. "We will call them Thirds"

Thirds? Why call them thirds?

Anyways, I dont think a robot will ever become human. What I think is eventually, humans will start replacing their bodies with mechanical pieces, first out of necessity, than out of vanity. Eventually, the mechanical parts will be replaced by parts that are close to being organic, and this will happen again and again. Likewise, robots will be made out of these same parts, not at first, once a new generation of human augment comes out, then robots will be made with the last gen designs. Eventually, it will get to the point that both humans and robots will become indistinguishable, with the only difference being "humans" are born with a soul, and "robots" are just AI constructs... but this in time could become hard to tell as well... actually, instead of going through the rest of it, ill just give you the end result.

Spoiler: the result

Basically this.

 

[NotSoNimble]

Just how a computer cannot generate truly random numbers, it will never be a human.

 

[Zaik]

A robot is never a human, because humans put too much meaning into the word human, because we've never run into any other life capable of the same sentience as us. Human is just being a Homo sapien(or however you spell it? i was under the impression this was right, but spell checker hates it), not all this additional silly metaphorical philosophical nonsense.

 

[Bags159]

When it comes out of a woman it's a human.

 

[theComposer]

Simple: a robot becomes a human when it is indistinguishable from one. At that point, the question doesn't really matter, does it?

 

[mireko]

I'm not sure why so many people in this thread are assuming that thought and emotions are impossible to replicate. There must be a way to identify them, and there must be a way to replicate them.

The most difficult part will be figuring out how human consciousness works, because we have no way to prove that anyone is conscious at the moment, nor any verifiable theories on its nature. I don't think this means it will never happen, however. Before Newton, nobody could've predicted his discoveries.

On a more subjective note: I believe that anything that is indistinguishable from a human is a human. The question of if it will have a 'soul' is ultimately irrelevant.

 

[Zeekar]

If you read this thread, you will want to see these clips. Period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kThr6CMLrvg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNKLuXUh3M4

Jules has a conversational AI that allows him to speak, but his words are just as scripted as the humans conversing with it. It isn't actually responding to or asking questions on his own -- Still a pretty interesting robot. His voice isn't just pre-recorded and played back(that I can tell); he actually seems to be forming words that sound mostly natural.

Anyway, to the OP, it's a matter of perspective more than anything, but I think AI could feasibly come close enough to simulating conscious thought that it would warrant serious ethical debate on the part of the creators and society.

 

[FalloutJack]

When does a robot become human?

Would you consider a robot who has emotion and rationality and reasoning human? What about if it had a human like exterior? What makes us human is the way our mind works, our early evolution stages were not human because they did not think like us or behave like us.

My first thought is "When Isaac Asimov tells us so.", but I think putting an intelligent robot brain inside of a human body and it can operate the body without too much trouble, then it's a human being. The duck has to look and quack like a duck before it can be a duck.

 

[Scout Tactical]

Never. I think that was pretty simple. Perhaps there is theoretically a point where robots become intelligent or sentient enough to have rights, but that's not the same thing.

 

[Sinister1211]

Interesting sidenote, The Engineering Grad students at Iowa State are currently developing a robot that has the capability of learning.... campus visit... totally sweet!

Not sure if robots will ever be close to being "human" but this is definitely a step in that direction!

 

[RadiusXd]

anyone seen bicentennial man?

 

[Felix 'Solomon' Hultgren]

After reading more of the thread I've seen several arguments I must answer.

MrLumber wrote "The fact is simply it is impossible for a robot to realize and contemplate its own existence. A robot simply CANNOT examine reality, as its thoughts are patterns of logic, and existence itself is illogical."
Existance is not a concept and therefore cannot be illogical. Before further discussion, check out the youtube clips I posted just a little while ago.

Wolfy2449 wrote "Real emotions are simply IMPOSSIBLE"
I'm going to assume that you meant to follow those words up with "to program". Even so, this remark is silly. There are so many things modern science cannot explain about emotions that it is just stupid to speculate in what is possible and impossible with programing.
More info on emotion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion

Believer258 wrote "First, though, we need a computer that can genuinely learn and adapt to new situations that it wasn't originally programmed for. I'm not going to say we're light years from that, but we're certainly not very close to it."
Wrong. Learning and adapting robots have been existing for years. We even had our own project with learning robots in my hometown, called "The Humanoid Project" between 1998 and 2003. Some more info on that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humanoid_Project

TWrule wrote "I say that is also an impossibility because true sapience must be organic in nature (and again, I'm not talking physiologically but it must grow rather than be assembled)."
First of all, are you sure you mean sapience and not sentience? Just in case you didn't I'll go with both. Anyway, true sapience/sentience as opposed to... false sapience/sentience? Lastly, why? Why must sapience/sentience be organic? What do you mean by organic anyway? There is no definition of what an organic compound is.

Zehydra wrote "Robots are incapable of emotion. A robot bearing emotion is a contradiction in terms."
No, it's not. Get your facts straight.

Zeekar wrote "Jules has a conversational AI that allows him to speak, but his words are just as scripted as the humans conversing with it. It isn't actually responding to or asking questions on his own"
Are you employed by Hanson Robotics? Or do you work with robotics professionally? I'm just wondering, cause it seems you have information about Jules that I don't have.

 

[NickCooley]

Well the closest a robot could come to being human would be a Face Dancer from the Dune series. I've always seen them as organic robots. They're mass produced, follow orders without question and hell, the later, more sophisticated "models" can essentially upload the memories and personality of the person they're mimicking.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I wouldn't consider it human. That is of course to be human, you have to be of the species Homo sapiens in my book. But I would consider a robot with true intelligence a person and to be treated as such.

 

[Nouw]

When they can create amazing musical masterpieces!

 

[RadiusXd]

would it have to be in a humanoid shell? or would say, a mainframe be given rights based upon it's sentience?

 

[Altorin]

never.

a robot can never "be" a human unless they have the genetic structure of a human and can freely breed with a human.

So a clone is a human, a robot will never be.

 

[Scars Unseen]

When is a robot a human?

When it's a human a little tune!

 

[Chatato]

There was a test they used to do where one person was sitting in a room talking to two different things one a computer and another a person at the end of the test he had to guess which was the human and which was the computer and if the computer was thought to be the true person then that's the way they figured out if computers are getting to sentinel for their case.