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Extraction Summary
5
People
6
Organizations
0
Locations
0
Events
0
Relationships
3
Quotes
Document Information
Type:
Essay/article (likely from a compilation/book, included in house oversight investigation files)
File Size:
Summary
This document is page 166 from a collection of essays, stamped by the House Oversight Committee. It features an essay titled 'The Rights of Machines' by Harvard geneticist George M. Church. The text discusses the ethical implications of artificial intelligence, referencing Norbert Wiener's 1950 work, various sci-fi films, and the concept of 'roboethics' and rights for sentient machines. The date is inferred to be around 2018 based on the text mentioning 'sixty-eight years' since 1950.
People (5)
| Name | Role | Context |
|---|---|---|
| George M. Church | Author |
Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School; Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard...
|
| Ed Regis | Co-author |
Co-authored 'Regenesis' with George Church
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| Norbert Wiener | Historical Figure |
Author of 'The Human Use of Human Beings' (1950), quoted in the text
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| Gianmarco Veruggio | Roboticist |
Noted for raising issues of roboethics since 2002
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| Stephen Jay Gould | Scientist |
Referenced for his 'non-overlapping magisteria' view
|
Organizations (6)
| Name | Type | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Harvard Medical School |
Employer of George M. Church
|
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| Harvard-MIT |
Affiliation of George M. Church
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| U.K. Department of Trade and Industry |
Mentioned regarding issues of robot rights
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| Institute for the Future |
RAND spin-off mentioned regarding robot rights
|
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| U.S. National Academy of Sciences |
Source of the document 'Science and Creationism'
|
|
| House Oversight Committee |
Implied by the Bates stamp 'HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_016386'
|
Key Quotes (3)
"Probably we should be less concerned about us-versus-them and more concerned about the rights of all sentients in the face of an emerging unprecedented diversity of minds."Source
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Quote #1
"Whether we entrust our decisions to machines of metal, or to those machines of flesh and blood which are bureaus and vast laboratories and armies and corporations, . . . [t]he hour is very late, and the choice of good and evil knocks at our door."Source
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Quote #2
"Any thinking being (made of any arrangement of atoms) could have access to any technology."Source
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Quote #3
Full Extracted Text
Complete text extracted from the document (2,978 characters)
THE RIGHTS OF MACHINES
George M. Church
George M. Church
George M. Church is Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School; Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard-MIT; and co-author (with Ed Regis) of Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves.
In 1950, Norbert Wiener’s The Human Use of Human Beings was at the cutting edge of vision and speculation in proclaiming that
the machine like the djinnee, which can learn and can make decisions on the basis of its learning, will in no way be obliged to make such decisions as we should have made, or will be acceptable to us. . . . Whether we entrust our decisions to machines of metal, or to those machines of flesh and blood which are bureaus and vast laboratories and armies and corporations, . . . [t]he hour is very late, and the choice of good and evil knocks at our door.
But this was his book’s denouement, and it has left us hanging now for sixty-eight years, lacking not only prescriptions and proscriptions but even a well-articulated “problem statement.” We have since seen similar warnings about the threat of our machines, even in the form of outreach to the masses, via films like Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970), The Terminator (1984), The Matrix (1999), and Ex Machina (2015). But now the time is ripe for a major update, with fresh, new perspectives—notably focused on generalizations of our “human” rights and our existential needs.
Concern has tended to focus on “us versus them [robots]” or “grey goo [nanotech]” or “monocultures of clones [bio].” To extrapolate current trends: What if we could make or grow almost anything and engineer any level of safety and efficacy desired? Any thinking being (made of any arrangement of atoms) could have access to any technology.
Probably we should be less concerned about us-versus-them and more concerned about the rights of all sentients in the face of an emerging unprecedented diversity of minds. We should be harnessing this diversity to minimize global existential risks, like supervolcanoes and asteroids.
But should we say “should”? (Disclaimer: In this and many other cases, when a technologist describes a societal path that “could,” “would,” or “should” happen, this doesn’t necessarily equate to the preferences of the author. It could reflect warning, uncertainty, and/or detached assessment.) Roboticist Gianmarco Veruggio and others have raised issues of roboethics since 2002; the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry and the RAND spin-off Institute for the Future have raised issues of robot rights since 2006.
“Is versus ought”
It is commonplace to say that science concerns “is,” not “ought.” Stephen Jay Gould’s “non-overlapping magisteria” view argues that facts must be completely distinct from values. Similarly, the 1999 document Science and Creationism from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences noted that “science and religion occupy two separate realms.” This
It is commonplace to say that science concerns “is,” not “ought.” Stephen Jay Gould’s “non-overlapping magisteria” view argues that facts must be completely distinct from values. Similarly, the 1999 document Science and Creationism from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences noted that “science and religion occupy two separate realms.” This
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