'Robot Rights, Now!?’ A Conversation on the Possibility of ‘Machine Rights'

Machines today are increasingly displaying a number of human traits. From intelligent personal assistants, robots working in hospital wards and anthropomorphic sexbots, to algorithms capable of generating original works of art and music, the number of machines replicating what humans do is growing and is likely to increase in the future. The artificial intelligence, Sophia, has even been granted citizenship of Saudi Arabia. Should such machines have ‘rights’? Are they even capable of exercising them? There are a number of sides to this debate. It has been contended that it doesn’t make much sense to talk about machine rights as they cannot enforce them. Machines are built for specific purposes. However, there is also a link between recognition and rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, for instance, says that the ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom…’ This wider notion of recognition begs the question that as machines become more humanlike and our interactions with them grow, should we be under a moral obligation to grant machines some rights? The discussants this evening will debate these and other pressing issues and this will be followed by an opportunity for the audience to participate and ask questions