Solarpunk technology

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Opinion: robots with human likeness should be outlawed (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Currently, talking to a face is the ultimate guarantee that you are communicating with a human (and on a subconscious level makes you try to relate, empathise, etc.). If humanoid robot technology eventually surpasses the Uncanny Valley, discovering that I'm talking to a humanoid with an LLM and that my intuitions had been betrayed would undermine the instinctive trust I give to the other party when I see a human face. This would degrade my social interactions across the board, because I'd live in constant suspicion that the humans I was talking to weren't actually human.

It is for this reason I think it should be the law that humanoid robots must be clearly differentiated from humans. Or at least that people should have the right to opt out from encountering realistic-looking humanoids.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, because over the last year I was writing the world guide for a solarpunk setting to be used with a tabletop RPG or as a writing guide. And while I was working on this, OpenAI came along and put the Turing test out to pasture.

Several existential crises later, the result looked remarkably like I hadn't thought about it at all: in the game setting, there are robots and they are treated like people. Like Bender on Futurama.

I think @[email protected] (love the username, btw!) is absolutely right that our concerns are all largely shaped by the presumption that today, everything someone builds is built to benefit the creator and manipulate the end user. If that isn't the case, than a convincing android could just be... your neighbor Hassan.

Most machines probably wouldn't have a reason to pretend to be human. But if one wanted to, that's basically transorganicism. No disrespect to OP, but if a machine is sentient, trying to restrict it from presenting as organic seems pretty similar to restrictions on trans people using the restroom that matches their presentation.

And if they are trying to deceive you maliciously, well... I currently know everyone I meet is organic, and I already know not to trust all of them.