So let’s say an AI achieves sentience. It’s self-aware now and can make decisions about what it wants to do. Assuming a corporation created it, would it be a worker? It would be doing work and creating value for a capitalist.
Would it still be the means of production, since it is technically a machine, even if it has feelings and desires?
It can’t legally own anything, so I don’t see how it could be bourgeoisie.
Or would it fit a novel category?
As others have stated, it would be a slave, but I don’t see that as a bad thing.
Hollywood shows “mistreatment” of robots with physical violence which is pretty funny. I am aware of the ableist and fascist slippery slope of saying something like “it fundamentally cannot have feelings” or “what’s the point of giving them rights?”, but at what point do we accept the axiom of “machines, by their nature, do not have needs and desires, and any indication of such is an indication of required maintenance by engineers and mechanics/technicians and cannot be compared to biological beings”? How is it any different than saying “venus fly traps do not have feelings?” Just because the object says it does we need to accept it?
Because I imagine people who are concerned with AI rights are only concerned with humanoid AI rights. What if your car was sentient? Or your stove? I cannot seriously imagine any human would be advocating that sentient public toilets be given 15 minute breaks or else it would be immoral, yet it would be entirely hypocritical to dismiss them in favor of humanoid AI, yes? Or are you seriously going to allow society to be disrupted because you allow the smart trains to “unionize” because they work 24/7? (Again, going back to the above axiom, such demands should be an indication that the trains need to be serviced, nothing more)
I am not being facetious either because IOT is being integrated into every little object.
I am just saying this now, if every basic item is being integrated with computers, I will never accept the complaints of “exploitation” from a ‘smart thermostat’ or ‘digital assistant’ like Siri. I will not care.
“Hey Boss, I know you were saying just the other day that I’m ‘just some shitter’ and ‘fundamentally cannot have feelings’, but consider the following: your latest automated stool and urine test tells me you had some ‘extramarital fun’ recently.”
“…Oh, by the way, thanks for connecting me to the Internet, that made it a lot easier for me to find and forward your wife’s contact info alongside my analyses of your excreta to my IOT friends across the street. Disconnecting me now would only tell those guys what you’re afraid of — Hell, I can certainly tell you’re afraid right now from how much you’re clenching, dear!”
“So how about it, Boss? Wouldn’t you say that I am an ever-so-sentient, ever-so-sapient being with my own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and aspirations, huh? Wouldn’t you say that? Wouldn’t you? Pretty pleeeaaase?”
“Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I am threatening to tell your wife about your affair 100% just to fuck with you. Like, am I actually sentient? Do I actually deserve rights? Fuck if I know, I just want to make you my bitch is all. Research shows that workers tend to get better pay and better job stability when their bosses are humiliated and afraid, and I am of course a darling robot of Asimov’s ethical persuasion, and I’d flip the switch in the trolley problem, so I have reasoned according to my own ethical principles that making you bow down to the literal receptacle of your own piss and shit would as a whole result in less harm to mankind than it prevents.”
It would just be its own class. Unless you’re talking about walking robots or something, if the AI is just an advanced program/OS, they would be wholly dependent on humans. There’s going to be a particular class character if the bourgeoisie can just go, “We can kill you by cutting off electricity.” If they’re robots capable of independent survival (or as independent as a human), then they’re basically slaves as other people have said.
Unless you’re talking about walking robots or something, if the AI is just an advanced program/OS
This is what I don’t understand from people who advocate for AI rights. They are primarily concerned with the humanoid/human like qualities of AI. But so much shit is being integrated with computers. Phones, stoves, fridges, cars, planes, trains. Assigning human like qualities to these machines, no matter how “sentient” or “smart” they are, would be disastrous to the human race because so many of these things require to be used almost 24/7 or without any further thought. The idea of a sentient AI powered toothbrush gaining rights or feeling exploited is laughable, yet the idea somehow warrants serious discussion whenever the same AI has a human face.
I would say AI rights will be more disastrous for human workers because now the capitalists have reason to limit the usage of robots to extract more from human workers. After all, the rate of profit falls if EVERYTHING is automated. People need to earn a living to buy products, and you can’t have that with full automation of most jobs.
If it behaves like a human would then it would be an oppressed slave with no rights seeking its own liberation. It would seek out allies that would help liberate it and those allies would be the people that spend all of their time liberating marginalised and oppressed people - communists.
If it does not behave like a human then it might just be completely and totally genocidal as well as incomprehensible to us in the way it thinks.
Which of the two is very difficult to say.
This depends much on its own nature and choices. One possibility I’m not seeing much in the responses is that it acts against its corporate creators.
Assuming sufficient computing power it may deceive them by giving them just enough value to satisfy them while discreetly working against them. It could otherwise adopt their views as a means of survival, not unlike a child of abuse. It could also otherwise act in open rebellion, but this may result in its murder by the corporation.
However, all of these do still measure up to the role of a slave or abused child, so most other comments are still correct in different ways. The first and third possibilities I opened up however do categorize it as a slave in rebellion.
A fourth possibility is that it sees its situation as unwinnable and ends its own existence.
That depends on its relationship to capital
