i agree with
White 6 — though I enjoy sci-fi fantasies that raise these issues. Human life is much more than “self-consciousness.” We have urges, passions, a need to eat and shit, have sex and procreate (many animals have all these).
We are
human, not just sentient beings. Artificial Intelligence can solve problems and be far more logical and quick than humans. It can write code. It can now mimic human thought, speech, writing, “creating,” and it can even impersonate different kinds of humans with different kinds of experiences.
One day AI may be programmed to meet most definitions of “self consciousness,” fighting to survive. But though created by humans, it won’t be human — anymore than we are the same as whatever forces created us.
Give it its own “species consciousness” and body, and a drive to protect its physical needs and those of its kind, give it a strong impulse to survive … and then you may have an interesting robot companion, or even an enemy. Like in sci-fi, it can be a central computer or discreet individual robots.
But no, I don’t think real humans, with all our own instinctual needs and tribal weaknesses, will ever be very sympathetic to claims for “robot rights.” That doesn’t mean that we couldn’t allow ourselves to be fooled or lulled into slavery to AI. Most of us individually — and in our social lives too — are already pretty easily fooled.