CS474: Human Computer Interaction - Robot Rights
Activity Goals
The goals of this activity are:- To describe the principles of robot rights
- To balance robot rights with human welfare
Supplemental Reading
Feel free to visit these resources for supplemental background reading material.The Activity
Directions
Consider the activity models and answer the questions provided. First reflect on these questions on your own briefly, before discussing and comparing your thoughts with your group. Appoint one member of your group to discuss your findings with the class, and the rest of the group should help that member prepare their response. Answer each question individually from the activity, and compare with your group to prepare for our whole-class discussion. After class, think about the questions in the reflective prompt and respond to those individually in your notebook. Report out on areas of disagreement or items for which you and your group identified alternative approaches. Write down and report out questions you encountered along the way for group discussion.Model 1: Robot Rights
Questions
- Why do robots need rights to protect them?
- What should be the consequences of interfering with a robot performing a critical task?
- How do otherwise beneficial devices degrade our autonomy or dignity, and to what extent should this be balanced with our desire to live independently?
Explore Further
These curated resources present sharply opposing positions — read at least two sides:
- Bryson, J. - Robots Should Be Slaves — a deliberately provocative chapter arguing that robots are property we design, and that granting them rights misdirects moral concern away from humans. Compare its reasoning with the Birhane & van Dijk paper from the supplemental reading.
- European Parliament Resolution on Civil Law Rules on Robotics (2017) — the real legislative document that floated “electronic personhood” for sophisticated robots (see paragraph 59(f)). Notice that the motivation is largely about liability — who pays when a robot harms someone — rather than robot welfare.
- Darling, K. - Extending Legal Protection to Social Robots (2012) — argues from human psychology: because people anthropomorphize social robots, mistreating them may harm us, paralleling animal-cruelty law reasoning.
- Boston Dynamics - Atlas robot demonstrations (video channel) — watch any recent Atlas or Spot video and observe your own emotional reaction when a robot is pushed or falls. Written takeaway: our empathy responds to lifelike motion, not to any inner experience — which is exactly the design lever (and ethical hazard) Darling’s paper analyzes.