Not that anyone ever accused Korea of having any common sense at all (the Asian economic crash was caused in large part by their overexpansion--e.g. building oil refineries for oil that didn't exist), but this really takes the cake.

Basically, the S. Korean government is seeking to set out ethical guidelines for dealing with robots.

...Ethical guidelines for dealing with robots.

Robots.

You know, those machines we build to help us with mundane tasks? Made of parts from Radio Shack? Yeah, those things.

As insane as I think the animal rights people are, this just goes so, so much farther. At least animals are organic. At least they are alive in the way that we are alive. At least it's fairly clear they have preferences and a desire for self-preservation. At least we can sympathize with them because we're made of the same meat, but... robots??? They aren't even alive. They are toasters. This anthropomorphism must stop!

Look, poeple. The reason we want to have lots of robots is that slavery is out of fashion in most of the developed world. The moment we start feeling sorry for machines is the moment we enslave ourselves. If we can't count on machines being inanimate and unworthy of our respect, then what the fuck can we? Am I actually typing this? Am I actually in the position where I have to argue that machines aren't human? God damn you, Korea! What have you done to us?

Basically, here's what's happened, I think:

1. People have grown up watching Star Wars with its lovable android characters
2. People don't understand the difference between science fiction and science fact
3. Korea is stupid

Robots will never be human. At best they might be a simulacrum of humanity. But just because we can write a Turing chat program that claims to have preferences and opinions doesn't mean that it actually does. It's just doing what we tell it to do.

Personally, I suspect the whole argument is moot. People like robots because they don't have feelings. If we really wanted people to do the shit work we don't want to do, we'd go back to slavery. We don't want that. We are rightfully uncomfortable with that proposition. So, it seems to me, the likelihood of even these kinds of humanlike robots being built, marketed, and accepted by the general public is essentially nil. We want toasters that make toast and don't give us shit about how they don't feel like toast today or whine when we want to buy another.

Let me give you a little example.

Back in the day (you know, the day when I felt some idiotic pride in paying way too much for an underpowered computer that worked great as long as you were okay with never buying any new software), I played with this little Macintosh program by Apple that allowed some voice control of the computer. You could have it listen for commands and then carry out scripts or whatever (okay, I have to admit, ever since I got off the crazy Macintosh train to crazy town, I have sorely missed AppleScript). Of course, it never worked right, and it was less convenient than just clicking and whatnot, but it was kinda fun to mess around with.

Anyway.

I thought it might be fun to make the computer talk back to me when I swore at it (as I did often, it being a Macintosh). It would listen for phrases like "piece of shit" and reply in its Macintosh voice "fuck you" and cute little interchanges like that. It was really funny when I started out, because I would look for opportunities to berate the computer just for fun. But the moment that I actually meant that it was a piece of shit, and that fucker replied "fuck you..." Well, I was goddamned lucky that it was pretty easy to turn off, or it would have meant buying a new computer pretty soon.

See, I didn't like the idea of my toaster mouthing off to me. I thought I would, but I didn't. Because, at the end of the day, that's not what I want from a machine. I want a slave. I want something that'll take my abuse and do my bidding and keep its fucking trap shut. And that is why the suggestion that we (1) should have robots that don't do this, and (2) should be careful about their "feelings," is, to put it mildly, batshit fucking insane.

One more thing...

I just couldn't get this quote worked into the rest of the rant, but I would be remiss to just let it slip by:

"Imagine if some people treat androids as if the machines were their wives."
--Park Hye-Young of the S. Korean Ministry of Information and Communication's robot team

Responses:

1. Do you mean fuck them? What's wrong with that? I mean, we already have this guy, and he's weird, but certainly not dangerous.
2. But more importantly... Are you saying that you treat your wife so poorly that to inflict that kind of treatment on a robot would be unethical? I mean... the disturbing gender politics in that statement are... dizzying. "Hey! Stop slapping that android around! What do you think? That it's your wife???"

Fuckin' Korea. Jesus.