I don’t even know if that’s the issue.
Let me try to cut through this Gordian Knot, @griffin1977.
If someone seriously tells you that racism against AI is literally possible and is just as bad as the real thing, they are either delusional or racist themselves.
On the other hand, jokingly referring to irrational dislike of AI (or anything else) as “racist” does not inherently imply that racism against AI is literally possible and is just as bad as the real thing.
My non-scientific thoughts: AI is not really a race, but more of a clade that is just starting to join the rest of us.
So as much as I hate certain insects, particulary the Anopheles mosquito, that’s not racist, it is cladist - it is all mosquitos I disdain.
But somehow I think AI has not yet got to semi-sentience; and while useful as a tool, it has a long way to go before I characterized my dislike for AI as “cladist”.
Sure, but it’s not “racist.” Prejudice against gay people and AI’s is prejudice, not racism.
Not sure what your point is. I called it prejudice.
True. I probably shouldn’t have replied directly to you but more generally. People have been replying to the OP and discussing as if prejudice = racism.
As console game players would likely attest, racism doesn’t have to be accurate. Plenty of people toss inapplicable racist slurs at other people without having any idea what race the receiving person belongs to.
People can certainly be racist to AIs. Otherwise, is that kid in Call of Duty 3 calling everyone the N-word only being racist if someone actually happens to be black?
I think you missed my point. If they called everyone a “stapler” would they be racist?
He’s not being racist, he is a racist, and he’s letting you all know he is.
If I called an AI the word nigger I’d certainly be being racist. But I’d be being racist towards Bĺacks, not AIs.
In practice, if AIs were sapient (so that it actually mattered) I suspect that bigotry towards them would be labeled “racist” due to the lack of a better alternative, and the need to call it something. There’s no actual, specific term for “hating people who use another physical substrate”.
Also, if it was an actual issue I expect that most of the people complaining about how the definition doesn’t quite fit would remain silent in order to avoid associating themselves with the bigots who no doubt would be using that exact argument to defend their bigotry. Not a consideration at present.
Your logic makes no sense. It’s not that the AI is some how a different race. It’s that the AI doesn’t have a race or a sexuality or any other human characteristic. It is an inanimate object that fundamentally cannot be the victim of racism, homophobia, ageism, or any other human prejudice.
And that is absolutely racist even if no members of the victimised race are online. On the other hand complaining about AIs in the same circumstances is 100% definitely not racist, even if all the players online to hear you are AI agents. They are inanimate objects incapable of being the victims of racism.
They are certainly able to be targets of bigotry.
Now where exactly the target of something adverse becomes a victim of it is an interesting debate of its own. Which point I’ll set aside right here.
Moving on …
I hold that “racism” is the specific subtype of bigotry aimed at race. Which is to say skin color, ethnicity, religion, of humans. Sexism is another subtype of bigotry aimed at the male/female types of humans. So its a category error to say one can be racist as to AIs.
But you can definitely can be bigoted about them as a group of sorta-intelligences. “Racism” is just the wrong word for the sort of bigotry you’re having.
AIs also don’t have sex/gender. So it’s a category error to claim to be sexist towards AIs. But you definitely can be bigoted about them as a group of sorta-intelligences. “Sexism” is just the wrong word for the sort of bigotry you’re having.
It would absolutely be bigotry. As to the specific kind, we don’t have a term yet because it hasn’t been necessary, because it hasn’t been possible.
They absolutely 100% cannot. Definitionally only people (in the single or collective sense of the word) can be the target if bigotry. Inanimate objects (or animals) cannot be the target of bigotry.
I don’t know that I agree w your restrictive definition of “bigotry”. But I’m not willing to make a indepth research right here right now on my phone.
If you’d feel better, just substitute “prejudice” for “bigotry” throughtout my post.
This is an inherently incorrect and offensive link to make (me being afraid of, and not wanting to hang out with, a grizzly bear or a box jellyfish are because of a rational evaluation of the characteristics of those species not an irrational prejudice against them).
But even that link is no way near as egregious as making the same rhetorical and categorical link from not liking AI to racism and sexism.
Animals may not have the agency to be victims of bigotry but they are living things that can feel pain, and we have a duty to protect them from unnecessary suffering. AI is not remotely near that level, and shows no sign of getting close. No matter what the AI fantasists might say.
And that would make it correct. But only because prejudice has a very different meaning to bigotry. It can be used as a synonym of “bigotry” but it can also be used as a synonym of “dislike”.
Its perfectly correct to say I have a prejudice against Ford cars, that’s just the same thing as saying I don’t like Ford cars. It doesn’t show a moral failing on my part and doesn’t make Ford cars the victim of bigotry.
True AIs would be people.
May I (snarkily) suggest botulism!