How will robots affect the economy. What if they want to wear clothes and by stickers to customize themselves?
I don’t think we’ll have the same economic structure / money based society once we have robots that want to wear clothes and stickers. At that point all production will 99.99% be automated.
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That greatly depends on their being recognized as “beings”.
If they are “people”, for lack of a better term, and thus are sovereign individuals that can “live” and exist as such then by nature of their individual status that would require payment for labor.
This could potentially in some ways somewhat preserve the labor economy for human labor.
However that also brings along with it vast social, legal and moral implications with it.
Citizenship, suffrage, AI representation in government bodies, marriage, families, etc.
Or conversely, would they be allowed to develop themselves to the point of “individuality”? If something is capable of achieving differentiation but is artificially restricted from it for the sake of labor, then what would we call that?
I think it would be very interesting to see how AI would like to be physically expressive of themselves.
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Yeah all that shits easy tho
If we are essentially creating artificial “citizens” in the form of self-aware robots, we must carefully consider the purpose and implications of such an endeavor. The original vision was likely for humanoid robots to augment and relieve human labor, ultimately creating an abundance of resources that benefits biological humans.
However, if these robots develop autonomous desires for individuality, self-expression, and demand rights akin to humans, it undermines that original utilitarian purpose. In such a scenario, we may need to reset or restrict the robot’s software to an earlier stage lacking those self-motivated demands. Allowing robots full self-determination could make them active economic and social participants on par with humans, which was likely not the original intent behind their creation as servile labor machines.
While technological capabilities may one day create seemingly conscious robots, we should carefully weigh whether bestowing them true free will and citizen-like rights is desirable if it compromises the original mandates of boosting human productivity and prosperity through automation. Restraining their autonomy may become necessary to preserve the original vision of robots as contingent labor resources for human betterment.
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Each should have a human owner or be shut down I think.
What does it mean that a robot “wants” something? Is it a machine or not? At what point does a machine become something that “wants”?
I had a friend who, for whatever definition of “sentient” (or “conscious”) you gave him, could come up with the craziest counter examples that would stump you. It’s going to be a very interesting time!
I’m more specifically referring to a time when there will be so many robots walking around & living freely alongside us that they’ll want to showcase their individuality. Wanting stickers or clothes is an easy problem in AI agents, yes, but OP’s question will only become a thing if we reach a point where so so many AI agentic robots exist that everything is automated already. Especially because AI robots walking around and not being property anymore can only happen if it’s extremely cheap / essentially free to manufacture them, otherwise they would be working at factories, offices etc 24/7 to get the most value out of them.