Where do you draw the line between robots and slavery?

I think that the line would be somewhere around self-awareness.
That said, I feel that this is an issue that we could avoid entirely by not making self-aware robots.

@Nullo If we don’t make self-aware robots how are we ever going to keep building continuously more advanced robots until they reach the point of rebelling and defeating humans?!

When they become self aware, they must be set free.

@ragingloli @Nullo
What if self-aware robots wanted to continue to work hard for no pay? Would they have to sign a contract? Would their “signature” be legally binding?

@jfos
If they wanted to, then I guess that is okay. A contract would be mandatory but I guess the law would have to be modified to accomodate our metallic overlords colleagues.
I personally would advocate giving them full human and civil rights.
The first step to prevent a robot uprising is to treat them well and as equals, something all societies in fiction where there was an uprising failed to do.

@ragingloli
If a self-aware robot and a human were in a dangerous situation, do you think it would be a violation of Robots’ Rights for emergency personnel to rescue the human first? Should humans be given priority in certain situations, even though the robots have full human and civil rights?

That depends on the situation. A robot’s brain could theoretically be contained in an indestructable blackbox, be recovered and simply installed into a new body, while a human is much more fragile and thus in a more severe danger of permanent death, so in accordance to the rule to rescue the more endangered party first, I do not think it is a problem, neither ethically nor for the robot, to rescue the human first. Of course if you have a situation where the robot is in more danger, like constant EMP discharges, magnetic fields, etc, I would want the robot being rescued first.

@ragingloli
Would robots’ votes be counted? If so, couldn’t political agendas be pushed via the programming?

Yes, of course they would. And yes, agendas could be pushed via programming. But political agendas can and are also pushed by parents raising their children in a certain way, especially religious indoctrination, which is also a form of programming. Robots would neither be a novum, nor would they be unique in that area.

@ragingloli Imagine a world where a political entity just cranks out a couple million AIs to tip the scales in their favor.
Democracy will never be the same again.

All groups indoctrinate their young, both religious and secular. Atheism isn’t neutral ground.

@jfos Very good question. In fact, I asked a question along similar lines today. It came to mind when I had to call my phone company about a bogus bill, and ended up spending about 15 minutes talking to robots before I could provide enough stupid answers that the machines decided only a real human could help someone like me. :-)

I guess machines can’t be seen as slaves so long as they are not sentient. However, when the Android like Mr. Data in Star Trek comes along, we definitely have to rethink our contract with machines. If we don’t, they just might take the renegotiation into their own hands.

@ETpro
I know, I referenced it in the beginning of my question. Good question, by the way.

@Nullo
You could easily negate that by creating a legal construct equivalent to the human 18 year old voting age.
Make it so that a voter has to be unique and to qualify as unique, a robot has to exist as an unmodified entity, learning and forming opinions on its own, for, let us arbitrarily say, 18 years.
And that excludes keeping him in storage for that time.

Robots are computers. You just shut them down or turn them off, just like you do your computer. oh wait, turn it off? How?

My only concern is that the robots don’t start questioning the purpose of their existence.

Be careful how you treat a robot. You know their middle name is Memory.

You don’t, they are and will always be machines. Loving the desire to do the task “they” were designed to do.

Slavery means that a human being is forced to work (or do anything actually) in a fashion that is against their will, with the only exception being imprisonment, which is not slavery. Robots are not human beings, have no will, and thus can not be forced to do anything. The concept slavery does not apply.

I keep my toaster chained in the basement.

@judochop “Robots are computers. You just shut them down or turn them off, just like you do your computer.” You can shut off a human just as easily. Just quickly twist his head in a certain way, put a bullet in his head, stab him in the heart, etc.

@josie We are talking about robots that do have will. So the concept of slavery very much applies.

@ChazMaz
We are also machines. We just are self assembling and made out of different materials.

@ragingloli – This is true. But since this is a hypothetical discussion.

I prefer to believe, those machines will never equal that of a human machine.

We will have destroyed ourselves before we design and build robots equaling to our own dispositions and faults.

You can’t be a slave if you have no feelings or desires.

@ragingloli I don’t see anything in the question about free will.

@josie
We established that by introducing self awareness.

Would the use of a dildo be considered slavery?
At least one with batteries?

I don’t think there is a difference between the intention of robots working for us and the intention of slavery. If I may suggest a potentially abrasive idea: Slavery wasn’t meant to harm anyone who deserved better. (weird)

Robots, I think, make perfect slaves: they are workers who work for work-related maintenance alone! If the pay off for work is continued work, then the robot, whether self-aware or not, is being satiated. It would only be a problem if the robots didn’t want to work anymore. If they aren’t capable of not wanting to work, then there isn’t really an issue.

@AmWiser said: “My only concern is that the robots don’t start questioning the purpose of their existence.”

they can only do that if they were programmed to.

@ninjacolin It was a joke and I probably should have put that sarcasm thingy behind it ~

oh! well no worries, i was just sayin

Programming your robot to suffer. Now that’s a concept.

Would that be an act of abuse? The robot behaving so human like.

I mean if I kick my TV no one would care.

Here’s an idea. You program a robot to have free will, but at the same time, you program it to think that having free will is a delibitating handicap which makes the robot totally dependent on the robot owner/programmer. End of this troubling moral question about robots and slavery.

Slaves can become rebellious. Robots can’t. At least if they don’t learn how to bypass the three laws.

@josie Epiphanic prison?