One might consider some amount of self-awareness or emotions as indicators (not as exclusive indicatiors, for several animals have that, too)… or maybe we need to finally accept that humanity can’t be separated from the rest of the animals 
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The number of the offsprings and the genes that are successfully inherited might not be the same. I’m not biologist :S Consequences, however matter. Research shows that the human genepool seem to divide. Between tall and short people. About 160cm is the waterline. Why? We don’t want to bend down to kiss our partners maybe? LOL
Start a topic on that if you wish, I promise to join in, but I will also mention there
the good’ol “mathematics were invented or created” one liner?
Can I invide you for dinner if you ever come to London? We should unfold that, and a lot other =)=) Take it seriously. The invitation is real, and I can actually cook.
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It is my opinion that living organisms are only extremely complex machines, and self-awareness or emotion (or love, or any other sentiment) are artifacts derived from the inner workings of those machines, or perhaps mechanisms to encourage reproduction or primitive defense mechanisms, to maximize the survival of the species.
Again, define self-awareness: if you come up with a loose set of criteria to measure self-awareness, then certain species of apes and birds qualify, and so do machines if you program them right. If you make them stricter, then certain humans are excluded. Same problem.
The wisest thought of this discussion, no doubt 
I was actually thinking to copy the whole conversation, edit it, so the question-answer match up, include emojis, and what not, proof-read it and publish it as it was a socratic argument.
We could include other lines from other topics as well, there are plenty of gemstones.
I think you’ll find hundreds of much smarter people than us have tried to tackle those subjects for millenia unsuccesfully.
Ima artist or what. I photograph, collect interesting thoughts and make zines out of it. Some are better budget/quality, some are xerox machine monsters.
I don’t care if I make profit on them, generally I don’t.
But if somebody reads it, and only enjoys it half as much as I did then it worth the effort, and I am ready to put the effort it needs in it. Have done it before, can do it again.
i think there are plenty of successes at more acutely defining the problem, and that’s usually the bit that people skip
Considering the context, I’m slightly worried to end in a strange lab, served by intelligent machines 
Just kidding, thanks for the invitation - if I ever plan on visiting London, I’ll drop you a note before
Absolutely. I think very many animals actually do qualify (for I honestly think the separation between humanity and the animal kingdom is stupid…), actually better than some humans. Some machines may already qualify, too, and that might be a sign that singularity is actually an option in a not-too-distant-future.
Ah, the good old “ghost in the machine”. Very interesting thing, and might be true as well… I think it doesn’t decrease the importance of emotions and such, but it might be very difficult for a lot of people to accept…
But if emotions and feelings are a by-product of our working system, ultimately, machines might have them, too. Maybe we should start thinking about how we treat machines…
Many people do already, and the subject of robot rights has been thoroughly explored in science fiction too.
hitchbot … not a good sign… at least for people here in the US…
I also find yelling at alexa acceptable because i know she’s a dumb heartless machine connected to developer headsets.
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I knew there was something, but didn’t research it for some time, but for most people in everyday life, it’s really just
And even there, it mostly applies to machines which resemble humans a lot. The closer it seems to us, the better the chances are we might treat it respectfully. That’s the main problem with animal rights - many are against animal testing on primates, but don’t care about how many rats are tortured.
Alexa’s a spying bitch 
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I think the key is to define objectively measurable criteria, and apply them strictly to any “subject” you consider. You can only analyze and compare what you can measure. If you start bringing philosophical, theological, emotional considerations into the picture, you can talk about these things until you’re blue in the mouth: nothing of value will come out of the reflexion.
In short: apply scientific rigor to the process and you might get somewhere.
Agree on that, but you do know that philosophy is science, do you?
Even if you love Alexa, you think she’s alive and you don’t think she’s the whoring bitch of a horrible psychopathic megacorporation, it’s okay too: after all, humans yell at each other all the time
No. Philosophy is a sham. It’s what self-styled intellectuals discuss when they don’t have rational arguments or scientific data on which to base their reflexion.
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12 posts were merged into an existing topic: The anti:no_entry_sign:-derailment:railway_car: & thread:thread: hijacking:gun: thread:thread: 
I thought the same, now I think the opposite:
Summary
The robot interacted with countless people successfully, however one interaction was fatal.
I would consider it the biggest success you can aim for.
Some found the concept of the robot so disturbing that it got almost powderized.
Not the robot itself was disturbing(at least very unlikely, I think it looked rather funny, almost cute) but the concept behind the robot.
It is well beyond anthropomorphising a "a computer in a bucket wearing rubber boots".
It is in my view recognising the hitchbot as a robot, realising its concept,
(that it is an ambassador, that carries a message, both literally throughout the social media accounts and metaphorically)
disagreeing with the concept (most likely the metaphoric one),
and letting the creators know about the disagreement (while keeping anonymity,
yet causing the maximum impact literally to the robot and getting the most media coverage).
It is on the borderline of political activism.
Vandalism would have been poking a hole on the bucket, or breaking it in half, or water damage, or I’donno.
But the fact it got destroyed as much as it could is a clear and significant message in my view. And me as an external viewer should recognise this.
Of course whoever was involved in the project suffered loss, emotional, financial…etc.
Overall, some dickheads fucked up a funny looking computer, yet it is much much more complex than that. And despite the loss the vandalism itself provides important lesson to learn. Especially to Canadians!! 
Stop being nice under all circumstances!
The robot couldn’t protect itself!!! It was harmless. And despite my naive sentimentality (that will be my ongoing joke for a while): You deserve to be vandalised if you are harmless. And that is the law of nature, not only human cruelty. Whoever can cause the least harm will get to the bottom of the hierarchy chain. And it is the best for the group. And that is a proven fact. Think about chicken. 
Pecking order.
And here we go, another evidence. A broken robot
Therefore I think: Ii IS a really good sign, and especially for people in the US and Canada.
US due to the ppl kill ppl vs. guns kill ppl 
Canada because wanting to be nice... compelled speech etc.
The message is not nice, but is important.
I feel with those who suffered loss, however.
That is a seriously intersting interpretation of that story!
I’m not sure if I agree - does “to be harmless” mean “to do no harm” or “not to be able to do harm” to you? I think this makes a bit of a difference.
I think it is very important to avoid doing harm. We had a similar discussion because of gun laws in a different thread, and I think that even if you could do harm, you should avoid it.
Not being able to do harm might lead to being killed, hurt, destroyed (like the hitchbot) - but I think this is a sad fact about humanity and maybe one we should finally come over.
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Yes, exactly!
Edit: But you have to prove it once! You need to, (┛ಠ_ಠ)┛彡┻━┻ so the team has evidence of you being able to cause harm. So you can protect the team if they threatened.
Well… being not really big and neither massive nor very muscular, this might prove difficult for me. But still, people tend to respect me. I think it helps that I am pretty self-confident and never put myself into the role of the victim. Currently, at least in my environment, this seems to be enough. I’m not a big fan of proving that I may be able to hurt someone, anyway
To get back to the hitchbot, though - do you think the experiment would have been different if he would have been able to defend himself? I think the whole point of it was to show the peacefulness of all that…