I presented a paper on robotic personhood more than 10 years ago, and most people laughed at my conclusion. I said that whether a robot could pass a Turing test or not was irrelevant. Robots would be given citizenship just because people wanted them to have it. Whether or not robots will become self-aware, feel emotions, or other indices of personhood, Sophia has been granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia. Now there are problems with robotic personhood. Robots were created to do work humans don’t want to do (too dangerous) or are unwilling to do (unpleasant, monotonous, repetitive). So having robot persons do them introduces slavery all over again.
The first article below points out that at this point of development, Sophia is primarily a chabox like Alexa, not a self aware sentient being expressing emotional desires for her personal happiness. I do not think Sophia has in any way demonstrated “life” as we currently define it, and yet a legal precedence has been set. Science fiction has become science fact.
RECOMMENDED READING:
- Sophia, The World’s First Android Citizen, Says She Wants To Have A Baby (IFL Science)
- Saudi Arabia Becomes First Country To Grant Citizenship To A Robot (IFL Science)
- Sophia, Robot Citizenship, and AI Legal (Cartland Law)
