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From: Robert.Frederking%CMU-CS-CAD@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Ethics and Definitions of Consciousness
Message-ID: <13499@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Nov-83 14:24:55 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.13499
Posted: Tue Nov  8 14:24:55 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Nov-83 14:36:28 EST
Lines: 14

bot really
enjoy being a slave, by setting up the appropriate top-level goals.  Should
this be illegal?  I think not.  Suppose we reach the point where we can
alter fetuses (see "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley) to the point where
they *really* enjoy being slaves to whoever buys them.  Should this be
illegal?  I think so.  What if we build fetuses from scratch?  Harder to
say, but I suspect this should be illegal.

        The most conservative (small "c") approach to the problem is to
grant human rights to anything that *might* qualify as intelligent.  I think
this would be a mistake, unless you allow biological organisms a distinction
as outlined above.  The next most conservative approach seems to me to leave
the situation where it is today: if it is physically an independent human
life, it has legal rights.