7 to 1 A response
by Katya Rukowski

7 TO 1
A RESPONSE BY KATYA RUKOWSKY

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

7 to 1
Have you seen the ads?
They're really good, aren't they?
I don't mean that sarcastically. I think Cybertronics and G/Dyn and Electracopter should be very pleased. A publicity campaign like this one costs a staggering amount, but they are getting their money's worth from Shif & Olajuwa (world's second largest advertising firm, in charge of the campaign.)

The ad agency copywriters have decided to address some real issues. Profound issues, like the possibility of severe economic repercussions if robots are emancipated, or the still more frightening possibility that we as a species will become obsolete; that by giving AIs their rights, we will be fatally compromising our own.

These are genuine concerns. Here are some genuine answers.

Katya Rukowski, Wild-Eyed Patron Saint of Toasters
One of the amusing side triumphs of the anti-emancipation propaganda machine is that they have managed to make my name synonymous with a kind of dewy-eyed emotionalism; the well-meant sympathy of a woman (we're All About Nurturing, remember) who, in the absence of a child, has redirected her excess maternal energy and Sunday School upbringing onto robots. I guess the thinking is that I outgrew my stuffed animal collection, but just barely.

Brief system refresh: I am an engineer. I used to recondition tractors for fun; I have coded my own (dumb) house computer controls; and I worked with Allen Hobby to build AIs capable of emotion. I made these things: and when I tell you that there is a clear and unmistakable difference between a toaster and a Cybertronics 2142 Evolving Intelligence, please consider that I might know more, in a calm, unemotional way, about the subject than the Shif & Olujaw copywriters!
But the subliminal message going out is, Those abolitionists care more about my home appliances than they do about me.
So here's my radical idea: let's not liberate the toasters.
You heard it here first. My engineer's solution to world economic woes: build machines. Not AIs, not slaves: just regular old computer-controlled machines like the ones that toast your toast right now. Yes it's true: after emancipation there will still be toasters. And road graders. And forklifts. And all those useful machines that have been systematically lightening the load on human labor since the Industrial Revolution. I want to profit from the intelligence of previous engineers just as much as anyone else. I'm happy to have a computer, a car, a coffee-maker.

The ranters at ARM, and the highly sophisticated ad men behind the 7 to 1 campaign, want to pretend that this is Man vs. Machine. Meat vs. Metal. Us vs. Them. When of course that isn't the issue at all. Nobody wants to free the toasters. I don't need to liberate my food processor.
This discussion is strictly about thinking, feeling beings.
It's Us vs. Us.

7 to 1 Says There's No Essential Difference Between Robots and Toasters
One thinks and feels. One doesn't. According to the 7 to 1 people, is there no difference between human beings and doodlebugs?

To claim that a contemporary Evolving Intelligence has more in common with a can opener than it does with us is ridiculous. But the most annoying part of this argument is the sheer hypocrisy of it. The same anti-robot folks pitching this line make it clear with every action that they don't believe a word of it.

There are laws that state a robot may not run free. There are laws that state a robot has no rights. There are laws that lay out the liabilities a robot incurs when he creates a disturbance or runs away or causes property damage.

What statue, exactly, explicitly denies refrigerators the vote?
Ever see a law that says a chicken can't smuggle itself to Canada?
Didn't think so.

It's enough to make you think you think the anti-robot faction knows perfectly well that AIs think and feel. It's obvious even to them that a robot can desire freedom; can formulate political opinions; can be held accountable for its actions.

And if even 7 to 1 and the SPCB believe robots think and feel, what was their justification for enslaving them again?

We Made Them; We Can Do What We Want To Them
Are you allowed to maim or kill your child?
Didn't think so.

The Economy Will Collapse
Do you want to live in poverty? I don't. If robots take over all the "white collar" work, do you want to work at back-breaking menial jobs for low pay? I don't.
The rich and their apologists said the economy would go to hell if we abolished slavery. They said the same thing about ending child labor, and raising the minimum wage, and cutting down to the twenty-hour work week. And it never happened. You know why? Technological innovation. Machines increase our productivity faster than our gradual retreat from labor reduces it.

We make more stuff with less work all the time. This is a good thing.

The net effect of ending slavery, and outlawing child labor, and raising the minimum wage, and cutting back the work week, has always been the same: a generation later we have a saner, healthier, much more highly educated population. If we free robots, and yes pay them wages, and yes allow them to win jobs on the basis of their merits, productivity will rise again, everybody will be forced to work less, everybody will be able to devote their time and energy and intelligence to more vital, creative, and spiritually challenging pursuits, in an economy that is creating ever more wealth.

What exactly was wrong with that again?

Okay, But What About My Daughter? How Will She Compete?
Well, if she truly, deeply, with all her soul, wants to be a bookkeeper, or calculate utility bills, or be a receptionist, then yes, I admit it: the robots will out compete her. But then, when I was a little girl growing up with my Dad in Nebraska, I truly, deeply, with all my soul wanted to be a defensive lineman for the Cornhuskers. Life can be cruel that way.

Your daughter will get over it.

I would be the last person to argue that humanity should sit around all day watching hollies and drinking beer. But I also worked on a farm too long when I was young to believe in the inherent nobility of doing hard stupid repetitive work. I'd much rather do hard, interesting, creative work. Wouldn't you?

Nobody denies that emancipating robots and paying them for their labor will have a major short-term effect on the economy. There will be winners and losers in such a changed financial environment. The most notable losers, of course, will be the people who profit from the slave trade.

Come to think of it, that sort of explains why the good folks at Cybertronics and G/Dyn are spending so much money on the 7 to 1 campaign, doesn't it?

If It's All So Simple, Why Am I Not Convinced?
You're afraid. You're afraid of what a major economic realignment might mean. You have a place in the world and a family to support and don't want to rock the boat.

More profoundly, you are worried that if the AIs get the vote they will use their new-found political power in ways not in the best interest of humanity. Maybe they will even want revenge for their sufferings.
Most profoundly of all, you worry that accepting the "humanity" of AIs will somehow cheapen our own claim to specialness, to superiority. You worry that they will be better than us: smarter, stronger, faster, undying.

I know this because I'm afraid of all of these things.

I don't know exactly what the future will hold if we emancipate sentient beings. History, both economic and political, suggests that the world will be a better place for it, but I can't know.

I know many brilliant men and women who are smarter than me; the knowledge hasn't crushed my self-esteem. I know plenty of folks taller, and stronger, and more graceful than me, and I still manage to

special. I feel grateful to be able to talk with the clever and admire the graceful, and I can't help but imagine that brilliant and gifted AIs would make fascinating friends and fellow citizens, but I can't know for sure if I would still feel that way after Emancipation.

About all I can say for sure is that what we are doing now is wrong.

A current Evolving Intelligence is as smart, as self-aware and as capable of suffering, as you or I. To keep such a being in merciless bondage is wrong: that's the one sure thing in this debate. And I know you know that. And I know that even the people behind 7 to 1 know that. And all I want is for us to act honorably on that certain difference between right and wrong.

If Leonardo Da Vinci had been a slave, we would never have had the Mona Lisa. If Lincoln had been a woman, he would never have led this nation through the Civil War. How many Da Vinci's and Lincolns have we already wasted out of fear and greed? How many AI Einsteins and Marie Curies are we throwing away right now because we punish any sign of independent will or action? Every being, artificial or otherwise, is a valuable part of our world. The lives of all of us are cheapened by the loss of any of us.

7 to 1 invokes the Athens of Pericles and Plato as a shining example of a state founded on the bedrock of slavery. Why can't we do better? Why shouldn't we make the words of Pericles a reality

Within the next two weeks, Julia Mann will introduce a Senate bill calling for a binding referendum on the status of so-called "sentient property." Support the bill. Vote in the referendum. Do the right thing.
It's that simple.