The question popped into my mind after watching two films, “Artificial Intelligence” and “Bicentennial Man”.

Recently computers have been developed capable of performing tasks as good as humans, maybe better. What came to mind was the computer “Deep Blue” that defeated the chess champion, Garry Kasparov.

The film A.I. put forward a robot, David, a child, with the capacity to “love” that would bring him close to being human. It also shows what would happen when humans became dependent on robots. The humans developed a deep-seated hatred of them. The robot, “David” displays his analytic ability to figure out how to get his “mother’s” love back.

In “Bicentennial Man”, Andrew, the robot, starts out as a “slave” for the family, but as time goes on he wants more. He wants the freedom and equality of a human. The story explores many issues of what makes a human: Humanity, prejudice, intellectual freedom and love.

These two films are science-fiction but with the continuing research and development of A.I., could some disturbing scenarios become reality? In these movies it seemed to me that the robots were being wronged.

Many questions arise when thinking about the development of A. I. such as:

Can a robot become a moral person? In “Bicentennial Man”, Andrew was taught the humanities, which supposedly made him a moral robot. But can we design morality, good and bad, right and wrong, into a robot?

What distinguishes a robot from a human? The three main differences are:

Humans have emotions and feelings, robots don’t.

Humans are organic, flesh and bone, robots are made of metal, chips and wire.

Humans think, robots are programmed.

What will the world be like if and when robots surpass their human makers in intelligence and how will humans respond?

There would be a turn around in social structure: The robots would treat the humans the way that humans have treated some humans and animals for years, with disdain and prejudice. The worst scenario would be that the robots would want to get rid of the humans!

Maybe we should proceed with caution with the research into A.I. and seriously think about what role we would give a robot, with a mind, in society.

I will leave you with this:

Any man who pits his intelligence against a robot and loses, has it coming!

This article was posted by David Wise author of “Web of Guilt”, “24 Traumatic Hours, Twice”, “The Becoming” and “Life Story Terror”.

All available on Amazon in ebook and paperback.

Also published on Medium.