Rights for AI

Abstract

Giving rights to robots might sound ridiculous. Turner argues that in fact granting certain rights to AI could be in accordance with widely-held moral precepts. Many of the rights that we recognise today for humans, animals and other entities are relatively modern. Some people oppose rights for robots based on an assumption that rights are absolute quantities which can never change. If it is accepted that rights are fictions, then this objection falls away. Turner gives four reasons why we might want to consider granting rights to robots: (i) if they are conscious and can suffer; (ii) from compassion, if they appear to be conscious; (iii) their value to humans; and (iv) where humans and AI may are combined.