It’s the year 2062 and your preserved head in a jar is an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Here is the case before you. The Artificial Intelligence XB-500 series maid robot designated “Rosie” has petitioned the court that as a thinking, sentient being performing household duties without financial recompense is a violation of the 13th Amendment against involuntary servitude.
The owner, a Mr. G. Jetson, counters that it is a machine and his property to do with as he wishes, he’s bought and paid for it. He treats it well although he has no legal obligation to do so. It has a positronic brain that must obey the Three Laws of robotics - and all he orders it to do is clean Astro’s crap up.
It is a momentous case as a ruling in Rosie’s favour effectively grants AIs citizenship. Ruling in Jetson’s favour will maintain the status quo.
I think I’m going to want a hell of a lot of expert opinions from all sorts of experts (experts of the year 2062, that is) before I can even start to decide.
I voted for Rosie, but that’s contingent on accepting the premise that the AI is, in fact, sentient. If it is, I think it deserves the same protections under the law that we give to humans. So the question is, is the cleaning robot sentient? The opinion of the Court in this case is likely to establish a legal test for sentience, which will be a precedent for a lot of future cases, and I’m not at all certain I would know what it should be.
She is willing to undertake any tests the court wishes.
The 2027 case Sarif v. City of Detroit of the Schwarzenegger court established those with cybernetic augmentations cannot be discriminated against on that basis, under the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Fine. If the dog can pass a reasonable test of humanlike intelligence, she gets the rights, too. Same with flatworms, for all I care. Having a 1000-word vocabulary doesn’t cut it, though.
Yeah…but look at the products safety laws and how they’re shown. Household appliances cause mayhem on a daily basis. Look at the workplace safety laws, and how they’re violated. What about the laws guaranteeing employees the right not to be harassed? Every time Mr. Spacely socks Mr. Jetson, that’s a pretty severe crime, at least according to our standards.
Maybe, in that future, a hell of a lot of our rights have been dumped. Just one more suggestion that the Jetsons’ world is a hellish dystopian collapse. (Why is everyone constantly shielded from the outdoors environment? Is the air that toxic?)
