Author Rodney Brooks believes that people are not “special”, they are just machines. No soul, just biomolecules. He believes that some day we humans will see that the robots we create have emotions and free will and we will give respect and rights to them.
“When I was younger, I was perplexed by people who were both religious and scientists. I simply could not see how it was possible to keep both sets of beliefs intact. They were inconsistent, and so it seemed to me that scientific objectivity demanded a rejection of religious beliefs. It was only later in life, after I had children, that I realized that I too operated in a dual nature as I went about my business in the world.”
“On the one hand, I believe myself and my children all to be mere machines. Automatons at large in the universe. Every person I meet is also a machine—a big bag of skin full of biomolecules interacting according to describable and knowable rules. When I look at my children, I can, when I force myself, understand them in this way. I can see that they are machines interacting with the world.”
“But this is not how I treat them. I treat them in a very special way, and I interact with them on an entirely different level. They have my unconditional love, the furthest one might be able to get from rational analysis. Like a religious scientist, I maintain two sets of inconsistent beliefs and act on each of them in different circumstances.”
“It is this transcendence between belief systems that I think will be what enable mankind to ultimately accept robots as emotional machines, and thereafter start to empathize with them and attribute free will, respect, and ultimately rights to them.”
