Humanoid Robots - Are they ethical?

[Gabriela]

I suppose if what you want from life is to move undisturbed by other people between your house bubble and your garage bubble and your car bubble to a department store bubble, then replacing human service workers with robots is a wonderful idea. But I think there's enough isolation and loneliness in America already, and supermarket checkout computers don't help with that.

So it's not just about the jobs—though it is also about the jobs. It's about what we think those jobs really consist of, and what we think their real role in and impact on our society is. If you think that checking people out at the grocery store or giving people suggestions in a department store is all just routinized work that requires no real skill or humanity, then yay robots. But I think that's a gross oversimplification of those jobs, of the interactions they create among people, and of their actual (unrecognized) importance in our society.

[Era Might]

Putting a face on robots is just marketing. The root of the problem is our entire technical civilization, and values/principles such as automation, efficiency, reproduction, manufacturing, etc. Technology is only the means by which we put into practice ideas. I find technology mildly interesting in itself, but I don't generally share the ideas/values behind them, so I'm usually just like, "Oh, I see how that works, why would I want to buy one of those?" One of my annoyance is the k-cup machines. I'm not against coffee machines in general, but the absurd drive toward more and more ease just annoys me. I can't grow my own food, but can I at least pour out a little coffee into the machine, smell it, take a few minutes to brew. For me, the ethical imperative is not to shun technology for the sake of shunning, but to consciously find limits to how we use technology, to maintain what is human. Those limits will be different for everyone, but I think we don't even try to live within human limits, technology has become one big superstitious ritual for us. And I think human-faced robots are anti-human, but they're just the tip of the iceberg.

[Gabriela]

Putting a face on robots is just marketing. The root of the problem is our entire technical civilization, and values/principles such as automation, efficiency, reproduction, manufacturing, etc. Technology is only the means by which we put into practice ideas. I find technology mildly interesting in itself, but I don't generally share the ideas/values behind them, so I'm usually just like, "Oh, I see how that works, why would I want to buy one of those?" One of my annoyance is the k-cup machines. I'm not against coffee machines in general, but the absurd drive toward more and more ease just annoys me. I can't grow my own food, but can I at least pour out a little coffee into the machine, smell it, take a few minutes to brew. For me, the ethical imperative is not to shun technology for the sake of shunning, but to consciously find limits to how we use technology, to maintain what is human. Those limits will be different for everyone, but I think we don't even try to live within human limits, technology has become one big superstitious ritual for us. And I think human-faced robots are anti-human, but they're just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Edited April 23, 2015 by Gabriela

[Not A Mallard]

Putting a face on robots is just marketing. The root of the problem is our entire technical civilization, and values/principles such as automation, efficiency, reproduction, manufacturing, etc. Technology is only the means by which we put into practice ideas. I find technology mildly interesting in itself, but I don't generally share the ideas/values behind them, so I'm usually just like, "Oh, I see how that works, why would I want to buy one of those?" One of my annoyance is the k-cup machines. I'm not against coffee machines in general, but the absurd drive toward more and more ease just annoys me. I can't grow my own food, but can I at least pour out a little coffee into the machine, smell it, take a few minutes to brew. For me, the ethical imperative is not to shun technology for the sake of shunning, but to consciously find limits to how we use technology, to maintain what is human. Those limits will be different for everyone, but I think we don't even try to live within human limits, technology has become one big superstitious ritual for us. And I think human-faced robots are anti-human, but they're just the tip of the iceberg.

​

[Not The Philosopher]

Generally I would argue that the use of technology is just part of human nature. The use of tools to interact with the world flows out of being an embodied rational being (as opposed to being an angel whose intellect can operate directly on things). Furthermore, God's command to be fruitful and multiply is linked with the one to cultivate the earth and have dominion over it.

Obviously, this capacity can be put to disordered use, like any other human faculty. And no technology is without its side effects on human life. But I don't think you can really make blanket statements about technology somehow threatening our humanity or some such thing.

W/regard to the particular topic, I see nothing intrinsically wrong with making robots, although the one in the OP's article is indeed rather creepy looking, and, again, these things can be put to evil uses (much like this fancy internet thing that we're using right here). It's not like you're subverting natural law in the way that practices like cloning and reproductive technologies do.

I mean, I am building my own private robot army for the purposes of world domination, but my moral evaluation still stands.

[Not A Mallard]

I mean, I am building my own private robot army for the purposes of world domination, but my moral evaluation still stands.

And I'm Captain America.

​

[Winchester]

​I have not made any choice, because I do not exist. Only you exist. And all you are is a brain in a vat.

​I meant "you" in the sense one uses "one", but you wouldn't know that because you're a stupid zombie. All you did was act in the manner that would indulge my desire to be right. 

[Era Might]

Generally I would argue that the use of technology is just part of human nature. The use of tools to interact with the world flows out of being an embodied rational being (as opposed to being an angel whose intellect can operate directly on things). Furthermore, God's command to be fruitful and multiply is linked with the one to cultivate the earth and have dominion over it.

Obviously, this capacity can be put to disordered use, like any other human faculty. And no technology is without its side effects on human life. But I don't think you can really make blanket statements about technology somehow threatening our humanity or some such thing.

W/regard to the particular topic, I see nothing intrinsically wrong with making robots, although the one in the OP's article is indeed rather creepy looking, and, again, these things can be put to evil uses (much like this fancy internet thing that we're using right here). It's not like you're subverting natural law in the way that practices like cloning and reproductive technologies do.

I mean, I am building my own private robot army for the purposes of world domination, but my moral evaluation still stands.

I would argue the opposite from a Christian perspective, that technology is not the glory of man's powers but a dangerous remedy for his fall (taking my cue here from Hugh of St. Victor, a medieval theologian). Technology is man's attempt to control a world that is in a state of disorder and from which he is alienated, his attempt to alleviate the curse of Eden, that his work would be toil. I'd say that technology is antithetical to the Christian virtues, such as hope and prayer and trust, because technology is ordered toward certainty and planning and control. The old pagan techniques such as the Greek oracles were a certain spiritual technology, a way to access the gods and get answers, but this is opposed to the Christian idea of prayer where one humbly asks and trusts and hopes. But aside from theology, our modern ideas about technology are uniquely ours, the Greeks are probably the most famous for their humanity, but they were not interested in technology but rather virtue and good living. There has always been technology, language is a technology, but today we have a different situation, technology is not jus things but the basis of our entire civilization. Our technology is rooted in a world of so-called challenges, we create problems and solutions and never accept that we are limited, every limit in our world is just one more challenge to solve with with technique, and technology is the specific applications of technique, which is the ideology behind technology. We have the smartphone, but the technique or idea behind the smartphone is the idea of "communications" or the clear exchange of code between two receivers. But what sense does this technical idea of communications make for Christians? What communication was there between Job and God, or Christ crying out on the Cross? Communication for a Christian is not a clear exchange of code, but a cry of the heart between two people meeting each other in different languages, but made one by the bond of peace and of Christ. Communication for the Christian is wordless, it is rather communion in the flesh and one word: Amen.

[Not The Philosopher]

I would argue the opposite from a Christian perspective, that technology is not the glory of man's powers but a dangerous remedy for his fall (taking my cue here from Hugh of St. Victor, a medieval theologian). Technology is man's attempt to control a world that is in a state of disorder and from which he is alienated, his attempt to alleviate the curse of Eden, that his work would be toil. I'd say that technology is antithetical to the Christian virtues, such as hope and prayer and trust, because technology is ordered toward certainty and planning and control. The old pagan techniques such as the Greek oracles were a certain spiritual technology, a way to access the gods and get answers, but this is opposed to the Christian idea of prayer where one humbly asks and trusts and hopes. But aside from theology, our modern ideas about technology are uniquely ours, the Greeks are probably the most famous for their humanity, but they were not interested in technology but rather virtue and good living. There has always been technology, language is a technology, but today we have a different situation, technology is not jus things but the basis of our entire civilization. Our technology is rooted in a world of so-called challenges, we create problems and solutions and never accept that we are limited, every limit in our world is just one more challenge to solve with with technique, and technology is the specific applications of technique, which is the ideology behind technology. We have the smartphone, but the technique or idea behind the smartphone is the idea of "communications" or the clear exchange of code between two receivers. But what sense does this technical idea of communications make for Christians? What communication was there between Job and God, or Christ crying out on the Cross? Communication for a Christian is not a clear exchange of code, but a cry of the heart between two people meeting each other in different languages, but made one by the bond of peace and of Christ. Communication for the Christian is wordless, it is rather communion in the flesh and one word: Amen.

​Our modern situation is quite older than you think - agriculture is what made civilization possible in the first place. It has produced all sorts of complications that hunter-gatherer societies do not have to deal with, but, y'know, I like cities and books and stuff. What is really new about our modern age is that we tend to reduce the real to what is empirically predictable/manipulable, and to view ourselves as cartesian minds "wearing" a meaningless body. This produces a situation which is ripe for all sorts of abuses of both the natural world and human nature.

I think your argument rests on collapsing the supernatural and the natural orders into each other. Technology, like, say, physical health, has no intrinsic relation to theological virtue. Whether someone is healthy or sick has no intrinsic bearing on the state of their soul. They represent things which are conducive to natural human flourishing, but are not related to man's calling to the beatific vision. But they are genuine goods in their own right.

Again, you can pervert them, or pursue them inappropriately. Someone could, for instance, pursue health to the detriment of theological virtue (for instance, making an act of apostasy as a condition for receiving proper healthcare), but that would not make health and the pursuit of good healthcare to be somehow opposed to Christian charity.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Not The Philosopher

[Era Might]

​Our modern situation is quite older than you think - agriculture is what made civilization possible in the first place. It has produced all sorts of complications that hunter-gatherer societies do not have to deal with, but, y'know, I like cities and books and stuff. What is really new about our modern age is that we tend to reduce the real to what is empirically predictable/manipulable, and to view ourselves as cartesian minds "wearing" a meaningless body. This produces a situation which is ripe for all sorts of abuses of both the natural world and human nature.
I think your argument rests on collapsing the supernatural and the natural orders into each other. Technology, like, say, physical health, has no intrinsic relation to theological virtue. Whether someone is healthy or sick has no intrinsic bearing on the state of their soul. They represent things which are conducive to natural human flourishing, but are not related to man's calling to the beatific vision. But they are genuine goods in their own right.

Again, you can pervert them, or pursue them inappropriately. Someone could, for instance, pursue health to the detriment of theological virtue (for instance, making an act of apostasy as a condition for receiving proper healthcare), but that would not make health and the pursuit of good healthcare to be somehow opposed to Christian charity.

I'm on my phone lol so don't feel like typing much. But just want to respond to the idea that technology or health have no relation to theology or theological man. I do see man as a whole, honestly I can't imagine any other way of seeing him. If our human life is other than what we really or ultimately are, then I don't see any way to live. And I am an anarchist in the sense I am wary of things like civilization, not absolutely but yes they create their own disorders. This was the criticism the Daoists made of the confucianists, when you seek knowledge and benevolence you have already destroyed them because you trap yourself in your categories and equivocating and legalism. I love books too, but am also weary of language, as was Plato, because it freezes speech and creates illusions of thought, memory, r tc. This is a whole other beast with the modern idea of information technology, language is no longer knowledge/wisdom but infinformation/format.

[Ark]

You. Are. Not. Ethical.

[Gabriela]

I think this thread manifests the very best of Phatmass.