Seminar 3

Below are the questions you will discuss in the graded speaking task, seminar, for Module 3.
Make sure you think about your answers before you start recording the seminar. There are
no right or wrong answers.

1. Think of all the issues discussed in the reading texts and the video and discuss the following
cases:
a. Imagine a world where robots are fully integrated into human life, without any rights.
What would be some possible benefits for humans and harms for robots?
b. Imagine a world where robots are fully integrated into human life and are given rights.
What would be some possible benefits and harms?
c. Imagine more cases/examples/situations in which the empathy we feel for robots
would:
- cause us to be abused.
- provide us with support/benefits.
- put us in dangerous situations.
- be too weird or creepy.
2. Is it the same to torture a dog and a robot?
3. Overall, do you think a human-robot relationship would be a healthy relationship? Why? /
Why not?
4. Do you think robots deserve to be given rights when they become more intelligent or
conscious?
5. How likely is it that we can come to create consciousness digitally?
6. In text 3.2, Samuelsson says, “Given some tasks to fulfill, the AI might work out that the
easiest way to complete it is to turn the entire planet into a research lab, removing all
functions not related to the goal, including all biological life – and doing this with all the
emotional investment of a construction crew removing ant hills to make way for a new
highway.” Explain the metaphor here. Do you think it is a close similarity?
7. In text 3.2, the writer says “if this description does not stir you, it may be because the
concept of a trillion subjects suffering limitlessly inside a computer is so abstract to us that it
does not entice our empathy”. If we cannot empathize with robots, does that mean there is
something wrong with our ability for empathy?
8. Why should people want to “upload their consciousness to the Cloud or make backup
copies on hard drives”? What would the results of this be, individually and socially?
9. In text 3.2, the writer states “Artificial intelligence has for decades been the greatest hope
for transcendence and fulfilment in the secularized West”. Why is the emphasis on
“secularized”?
10. In text 3.2, the writer states “we are entitled to anything for which we strive”. What does
she mean? Do you agree? Can you show some examples as to why?