What of the Suffering Robot?

Ethics, Technology, and Coping with Our Ever-Alienating World (Vol. 4; Issue 29)

Delving into the soon-arriving intelligent robots brings innumerable challenges. Too many beg for discussion, overwhelming any one effort. Nonetheless, and as you know, artificial intelligence (AI) has already arrived. Each week when I begin drafting these missives, a prompt asks me if I’d like the assistance of Google’s AI software.

(No, thanks, I prefer the embodied, organism-in-context-as-self-and-as-writer.)

Lingering and rather disturbing questions surround the possibility of AI achieving the capacity to simulate “real” human consciousness. New York University Philosopher David Chalmers (2010) believes artificial general intelligence (AGI) will transition into artificial superintelligence (ASI). Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom (2014) validates the prediction, anticipating ASI emerging in the foreseeable future. He describes ASI as:

an intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest. (p. 22)

A few basic assumptions require delineation before I eagerly invite you into an ethical thought experiment. First, I set all the scary possibilities about ASI aside, including the possibility they pose an existential threat to humanity. In other words, some fear, these machines will ultimately need our atoms to survive. As a result, they will ultimately consume us. I also ask you to envision that, someday soon, you’ll purchase a servant-robot who will cook your food, clean your abode, wash your clothes, pay your bills, and maintain accurate records of your expenditures for tax preparation.

Please hang on for two more background points. It will be quick! I assume you know, or at least have heard of, the concept of ego defense mechanisms—specifically the idea of dissociation. French psychologist Pierre Janet, writing in the late 19^th century, first used the word to describe how persons’ mental processes fracture. These consciousness-splintering processes form the basis of the concept of ego defenses in psychoanalysis.