Me too. [hides power drill behind back]
Just show @LDoBe this groundbreaking documentary from the 90’s:
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“The ethics of torturing robots is not a new question, and it’s not becoming any less nonsensical as robots and AI becomes more lifelike.” ftfy
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I love that question. Love love love it!
Wasn’t the term Robot came from the Russian term for “hard working slave”? Aren’t the whole point of creating robot is to replace slave Labor that where still used by major producers and corporations?
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What if you don’t know if the party you are addressing are all male, all female, or mixed?
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A single Commodore PC is enough for most people.
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Every six months or so BD comes out with a new video showing off one of their robots, and there’s always some asshole doing something like that to the bot. Last time it was a dog-type machine and they kept kicking it over. I’ve started to wonder why? Do they want us to think of them as controllable, and non-threatening? Are they trying to make the point that this is a non-living thing, even though is moves so? Are they really just stress-testing the thing? Are they making the film to market to a bunch of psychopathic military buyers?
In any case, great link. Thanks!
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I don’t know how you see it, but such show of a control system that can react in real time and compensate unexpected force impulses, and recover quickly if it can’t compensate and topples over, is pretty impressive.
Maybe you have to be an engineer to appreciate such things.
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Exactly. If the question was “Is it ok to purposefully destroy a robot for QA or other purposes” I would have responded with an emphatic yes. The use of torture is a different space, one in which the torturer derives pleasure, intents to punish, or attempt to extract information…even if none of those things are possible from the machine’s perspective. It’s all about what the torturer and witnesses feel. It is similar to relational bullying, where the impact is not just on the victim. Bystanders and the bully are all deeply affected by the act. If the designers purposefully create a humanoid robot, to engender warm feelings and empathy, then of course people are going to be bothered when they see it “tortured”.
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The same way, amigos is the neutral here. Another example, dogs. You usually say “los perros” no matter how many male/female plural dogs there are.
Actually using “mis amigos y amigas” is a an abuse of the spanish language gender capabilities, there is fad by some groups to press gender issues at the language level and try to use that kind of wording in official documents by governments as such, but the spanish language gatekeepers (Spanish Royal Academy, RAE) says that such genderized abuse is a no-no.
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It was Czech, and the translation was more like “Serf Labor”.
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Indeed, and the first use of the word in this context referred to something more like the Repilicants in Bladerunner.
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What if we could create humanlike robots that could act as surrogates for people who would otherwise hurt other humans? How about 
small child androids for paedophiles to keep under their beds and use as the urge takes them? The squick factor is high, but pragmatically it might be beneficial to society as a whole …
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I think then the question should be,“Is it ok to torture robots if the person who is doing the torturing was really wanting to torture someone but if we build him a robot he will redirect his proclivities to an inanimate object?” Yes.
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If we can’t torture them, can we at least still fight them?
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Amig@s
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I love that the word “torture” was quietly substituted out before dismissing the issue. 
Engineers can be such tough-minded, loveable curmudgeons. I’d feel sorry if they were replaced by robots — esp. if the robots then decided to keep them in labs and perform destructive testing on them.
A poke with a hockey stick may be in order if they’re just standing around daydreaming of electric sheep.
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