Experts predict that artificial intelligence will soon evolve to animal level, and ethical questions are increasingly being raised in this regard. Some are seriously wondering whether it will be necessary to provide AI with ethical protection, similar to that which we provide today to our smaller brothers. According to the publication Aeon, this issue needs to be resolved before artificial intelligence approaches human development.
Today all over the world there are a large number of various committees and public organizations that make sure that animals are not subjected to suffering or killed unnecessarily. And in the case of using human stem and brain cells for scientific research, the control is even stricter. Why hasn't the ethics of using AI received the same attention?
Some justify this by saying that artificial intelligence is not conscious and does not experience emotions. Good and evil do not exist for him. But the question arises, how will humanity one day know that AI has created with the ability to experience emotions? After all, if such an intelligence in terms of development catches up even with a mouse, it will already be able to experience pain or pleasure, but will not be able to report it.
This brings us back to the concept of consciousness itself and the criteria by which one could determine its presence or absence. Progressive scientists believe that in order to create artificial consciousness, it is enough to build a program for effective data processing with the functions of long-term planning and directing attention to objects around. Conservatives argue that one program is not enough here and complex organs such as the mammalian brain are needed.
If the former are right, many artificial intelligences may soon appear on Earth, each of which will need to protect their rights.
Recall that even human and animal rights began to be protected relatively recently on the scale of history, and a special leap in the development of the institution of human rights occurred after the war crimes of the Nazis, medical experiments, etc. There is reason to expect a similar scenario in the case of AI.