Nov 30, 2011
What percentage of my body needs to be alive in order for me to be considered a living person with full rights? Obviously a person can lose hair, teeth, limbs, kidneys, and whatnot, while still having rights. People in comas still have legal rights. Where is the limit?
I ask because my new plan for immortality is to keep a few skin cells in a petri dish to continue with my life after the rest of me dies. And I'll store those cells inside a robot that continues to live forever. The robot will have four directives after my death.
There might be some issues with a robot accessing my bank account and investments once my only living parts are in a petri dish. That's why I'll set up a trust before I die, so a regular human can distribute my finances upon the robot's requests. But the human will rarely be needed because the robot will have all of my financial passwords and access to the Internet.
Robots can already walk upright with as much balance as a human. They can open jars, comprehend their surroundings (somewhat), and understand spoken language (Siri). Battery technology will continue to give them range, and they can learn to recharge themselves.
Any decent robot will have a wireless connection to the Internet and be able to search for new advancements in robot technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. For the first fifty years of the robot's autonomous life, the trust I will set up might need to make the final decisions on which robot upgrades make sense. I can imagine the trustee hiring a robot technology consulting company once a year to recommend upgrades and do routine maintenance. At some point, the robot will be capable enough to take over its own upgrade function.
After my scheme goes into effect, Congress will try to modify the law to say a few cells in a petri dish do not qualify as a living human with rights. When my robot gets wind of that, he'll leap into action, hiring lobbyists and lawyers, and creating online petitions. The robot will be programmed to vigorously defend the rights of my living cells. Cough, cough **Skynet** cough.
If my robot is destroyed or imprisoned, that's no problem. His software would always be fully backed up in the cloud and a second set of my living cells would be maintained in another location outside the country. In the event of my primary robot's demise or detainment, my trustee would be instructed to purchase a new robot from the robot factory, order some cloned cells from my backup petri dish, and recreate me.
Why wouldn't this plan work?
I ask because my new plan for immortality is to keep a few skin cells in a petri dish to continue with my life after the rest of me dies. And I'll store those cells inside a robot that continues to live forever. The robot will have four directives after my death.
- Keep my cells nourished/cloned and alive in the petri dish inside its body.
- Keep upgrading itself whenever there are advances in robot technology.
- Replicate my personality.
- Make the world a better place.
There might be some issues with a robot accessing my bank account and investments once my only living parts are in a petri dish. That's why I'll set up a trust before I die, so a regular human can distribute my finances upon the robot's requests. But the human will rarely be needed because the robot will have all of my financial passwords and access to the Internet.
Robots can already walk upright with as much balance as a human. They can open jars, comprehend their surroundings (somewhat), and understand spoken language (Siri). Battery technology will continue to give them range, and they can learn to recharge themselves.
Any decent robot will have a wireless connection to the Internet and be able to search for new advancements in robot technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. For the first fifty years of the robot's autonomous life, the trust I will set up might need to make the final decisions on which robot upgrades make sense. I can imagine the trustee hiring a robot technology consulting company once a year to recommend upgrades and do routine maintenance. At some point, the robot will be capable enough to take over its own upgrade function.
After my scheme goes into effect, Congress will try to modify the law to say a few cells in a petri dish do not qualify as a living human with rights. When my robot gets wind of that, he'll leap into action, hiring lobbyists and lawyers, and creating online petitions. The robot will be programmed to vigorously defend the rights of my living cells. Cough, cough **Skynet** cough.
If my robot is destroyed or imprisoned, that's no problem. His software would always be fully backed up in the cloud and a second set of my living cells would be maintained in another location outside the country. In the event of my primary robot's demise or detainment, my trustee would be instructed to purchase a new robot from the robot factory, order some cloned cells from my backup petri dish, and recreate me.
Why wouldn't this plan work?
Comments
Nov 30, 2011
I think the key is the human brain, the thing that contains all your thoughts, memories, and personality. I think your "robot" would only count as being "you" if you could (A) keep your brain alive indefinitely on a robotic body or (B) accurately transfer your entire brain to a digital medium.However, the robotic assistant question (sans the petri dish) is still a valid concern. Could you give a robot permission to handle your bank accounts? Well to a certain extent we already do. Online banking and automatic payments mean our money is being handled by software, at our direction of course. Could this continue after you died? Basically, could you give permission for a computer program to be executor for your estate? Could it generate income, make purchases, pay taxes? And at what point would this "robot" be considered a contributing member of society? Would they be allowed to drive on public roads and recharge along with electric cars at the Exxon station? (We are close to having self-driving cars after all.) Open a credit card and make purchases at Radio Shack? Could it vote?
+3
Nov 30, 2011
It sounds like "The Positronic Man" (or the movie Bicentennial Man) by Isaac Asimov to me (except for the messy cell cloning part).
0
Nov 30, 2011
What happens if I violate your robot against it's programming? I mean if I sneak up behind it, bend it over a console and have a go at it's access port with a spanner will it develop software bugs?
+3
Nov 30, 2011
What would be the point, of your experiment though? Not only won't it really be "you" in any meaningful sense, especially it won't have any volition of its own. To have volition or a "personality" which, at present, we can use to distinguish man from machine, you need consciousness. At present, we don't really understand exactly what consciousness is, nor can we replicate it in a machine. It *may* be a function of complexity -- get enough neurons and you get consciousness. But there's no proof of that at all. When you're asleep, you're unconscious. But then you wake up, and that mysterious "consciousness" suddenly reappears. Where does it go? What brings it back? We don't know.We can make "Eliza" programs, but we are a long way yet from understanding, not to mention duplicating, consciousness and, with that, "real" AI.
+1
Nov 30, 2011
You actually described something similar to a villain I made up; a sentient piece of software that makes real world avatars by skimming money from banks, hiring kidnappers and brainwashing hand-picked people.
