Robot Democracy

The previous blogpost has stimulated some of the philosophical gyri of my brain.

After long, inhuman experimentations, we finally figured out that democracy is the best for to govern humans. But we do not give the democratic rights to other organisms like cats and dogs or to machines working in the assembly lines of Ford Motors. It is not surprising because the humans are far more superior to other organisms and machines in terms of intelligence, general awareness, creativity, and common sense.

After thousands of years in a science fictional world, let us assume that robots also become more and more intelligent - not just in terms of computational power, but also in terms of general awareness, creativity, etc. They become smart enough to understand that there is no such thing as free lubricant oil, and so assume the roles of professors and surgeons to establish themselves in the society. In such a world, will this civilized society extend the democratic rights to Artificial Intelligence? Or should these robots still have to toil under despotism? If a humanoid becomes visibly smarter than the dumbest human with democratic rights, could that humanoid be considered for promotion on the basis of its artificial intelligence? The answers to these absolutely crazy questions would determine whether there would be robotic terrorism and terminator-style man vs. machine war in the future.

So why should not I sit down and write a science fiction about a robot which becomes a lawyer, fights for robot rights in a Gandhian way? In every science fiction, robots fight humans to control the world. This time, let it fight for its rights and free will through Ahimsa.