UK ponders civil rights for robots

A UK GOVERNMENT think tank is warning that robots might be smart enough to demand emancipation from their human owners.

The paper warns that there could be a "monumental shift" could occur if robots were developed to the point where they could reproduce, improve or think for themselves. This would of course make them more developed than most humans.

The research, commissioned by the U.K. Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre said that correctly managed, there was a possibility for increased labour output and greater intelligence to be provided by robots that will ultimate lead to greater human prosperity and an improvement of the human condition.

However, Robots could end up suing the government if they did not get their way. The result is that the toasters could have to provide full social benefits to them including income support, housing and possibly robo-health care to fix the machines over time.

The Centre predicted that this would not be an issue for at least another 20 years, but then again technology which was thought to be a century or two away, such as retinas and drugs for dramatically lengthened lifespans were only a decade away, so who knows.

Sir David King, the government's chief boffin said that while the government was not in the position of fortune telling it did need to explore the broadest range of different possibilities to help ensure government is prepared in the long term and considers issues across the spectrum in its planning.

It is probably better to give them the vote, apparently the government has no intention of building a huge battlestar in which to find other humans in the galaxy if the toasters revolt. µ

L'INQ
usatoday