Questions about gynoids

[stelarfox]

I have several questions and want answers from people that enjoys this subject, even so to really know about it i will like you to also post if you are female or male (if you agree or answer by PM if you do not feel like it) this is mostly to be able to understand why (and if you can say why you think that is the right answer better).
If females were able to be converted into gynoids but remaining their memories and feelings but, making them 100% inorganic in every possible way, and to prevent a "body rejection",their sensors are better so they feel even more than before on nice things and less on bad ((to make it easy they feel more pleasure and less pain)).

1) Are they alive?
2) Should they still have rights?
3) Should they be owned if they are machines?

you can add conditions that "in this case yes and in this other case not" if you do not have just 1 answer.
thank you.

[Stephaniebot]

Female, though haven't always been

1. If they are 100% inorganic, then judging by all current parameters, no, they aren't alive, they are a machine., even if their memories were derived from a human source.
Clearly if they are cyborg (combination human and machine), then this becomes a different matter. If their memories/thoughts are their own, and in no way controlled, then they are alive. If their thoughts are simply a CPU programming of their original human thoughts, then they are probably a machine

2. I suspect they would have rights, but not human rights, as we know them. I suspect a whole new load of rules and regulations on treatment would have to be drawn up. 100% inorganic, rights would be limited, or less, as I say, that's hitting machine like levels. Cyborg combo's, would certainly have to have some rights, that's for sure.

3. If they are purely machines, then yes, they need to be owned. There would have to be a contract agreement with their owner, and therefore in a sense, they are owned. Cyborgs, depends on their levels of self function. If they are capable of looking after themselves, if necessary, there is no need to be owned, even if it might be a wise idea
If they aren't capable of looking after themselves, when required, they need to be owned.

Hope that helps

[stelarfox]

ok good for the info, and you improved it but it was mean to be only 100% machines (so not cyborg but was not bad if you feel you have to say it).

[smalk]

1. If they possess the traits commonly attributed to living entities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Biology, for example) than for me they are alive.

[Stephaniebot]

I thought it might be that case, but just wanted to cover all bases.

In that case, they are machines, they need to be owned, and probably wouldn't get much in the way of rights. Doesn't mean there aren't some that would still happily do it though, just saying...

[stelarfox]

1. If they possess the traits commonly attributed to living entities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Biology, for example) than for me they are alive.

answering this, they are not alive because they cannot reproduce. and they cannot heal themselves either.

[Svengli]

Well,

I think that if a person is voluntarily converted into a mechanical device but with the same reactions and experiences as the person, then I think that mechanical device should be able to participate in society in the same way as the person was able to.

Now, if you have a situation where a mechanical thing is created that duplicates a person in other circumstances, things get messier. If the mechanical thing is created as a duplicate and the person remain, if the conversion happens involuntarily or if the conversion only retains part of a person, then you enter into "difficult and debatable territory".

[dale coba]

What right should the device have to reproduce?
How many spawn?
and how varied, evolving, suprahuman?

It's Pandora's Box and a can of worms, which spring out like a genie from a bottle that shatters.
Open that door, and the toothpaste ain't ever going to fit back in the tube.

- Dale Coba

[stelarfox]

not sure if you noticed but i stated that they cannot reproduce themselves.

and svengly.. you did not answer if they were alive or not
but you did the other 2
(not that i share your choice)

[dale coba]

stelarfox,

The tricky thing as I see it is - no right to reproduce.
We don't have any version of that in the U.S. (currently, thank heavens).
Along with "alive" and "self-aware like a human", you get the right to reproduce.
They couldn't be prevented technologically from reproducing. They would have to be convinced not to, and they could always change their minds (or have them changed).

to your original questions:
1 ) They are not alive. They have much in common with life, but with some very significant traits added, and other important traits absent. "Alive" may not end up being the point. "Alive" and [something else] might be equivalent enough, important enough.
2 ) Many objects, places, and individual animals have certain limited rights. The gynoids shouldn't be granted human rights. Start with considering small rights, like the right to not be destroyed. Build up from nothing, instead.
3 ) Being owned is vague. Prisoners, slaves, children don't have the full human rights of a free adult citizen. Those groups are at least slightly "owned". What rights would your "owned gynoids" have?

- Dale Coba

[Spaz]

I am a non-conformist. As such, to me, any meaning of life that is used for biological life is irrelevant when it comes to a machine.

You have to use completely different parameters when it comes to dealing with a mechanical life form.

Can it think for itself?
Can it recreate and/or improve upon itself?
Can it's life be terminate indefinitely?

Those are questions you should ask, since those are basically the same things that are used to judge biological life.

Let's take thinking for itself. It would merely take a very advanced heuristic algorithm and A.I.

Let's take reproduction/improvement. Technically, the human genome is improved upon depending on the current preferences of society. We like tall, buxom,, skinny blonde girls. Well then, they're the only ones males mate with and then we end up with a society of light haired, skinny, big breasted women. If androids were to improve upon themselves, I doubt it would be that much different...it would merely be easier and take considerably less time. With us humans, we would call it eugenics. With machines, it would be evolution.

Finally, let's take a look at dying, or termination. A human dies, they are dead...end of discussion. A machine dies, maybe it can be repaired or replaced, but there is always the possibility of being damaged beyond any reasonable expectation of repair.

I would argue that, even if the machine is human made, it should be treated as it's own species. You have animal rights activists now, I don't see why there wouldn't be android rights activists as well.

As for Dale's dilemma involving how many spawn, that can easily be limited by the amount of resources that would be required to even build a humanoid android, or even a sophisticated robot. Android programming could also easily be made to be similar to human instinct.

[dale coba]

As for Dale's dilemma involving how many spawn, that can easily be limited by the amount of resources that would be required to even build a humanoid android, or even a sophisticated robot. Android programming could also easily be made to be similar to human instinct.

Okay, so you design and build a humanoid android, and this design can not be replicated without rare, complex machines and/or nearly unavoidable components, like unobtainium or pizzazium infinionite.

Now I'm the crazy and evil scientist, and I give my one android some very bad ambitions. She can't make more androids like herself - unless she redesigns the android to avoid those original design limitations. She's got a computer brain, she can network and she number-crunches the quanta until she discovers, hey, if you micromachine the surface, copper works just as well as unobtanium.

Redesign, substitute - and who says her spawn need be humanoid, or similar to her in any particular way? Unfortunately, my fembot takes a fancy to Stargate: SG1, and decides the Replicators need to be designed and built, to serve her. Thusly, humanity vanishes.

- Dale Coba

Apocalypse clause: I'm marginally convinced that humanity is doomed by toxins and radiation. Toxins screw with epigenetics, the molecules and methods which maintain the punctuation along the DNA strand.

Epigenetics is what you already know about everything a pregnant woman shouldn't eat, drink, or be exposed to; but some epigenetic issues are passed down to children, or directly to grandchildren, and beyond.

If future generations can't avoid being engulfed by the simultaneously exploding epigenetic epidemics of autism, obesity, schizophrenia, depression and infertility, Children of Men-level shit, then... why not risk unleashing something, a new species, or Skynet?

[Svengli]

svengly.. you did not answer if they were alive or not

Hmm,

I think that we'll have to wait until conversion technology becomes closer to possible before this question could be answered.

As things stand, I don't think I have enough information to decide if a person converted to a machine would be alive.

[--NightBattery--]

Let's take reproduction/improvement. Technically, the human genome is improved upon depending on the current preferences of society. We like tall, buxom,, skinny blonde girls. Well then, they're the only ones males mate with and then we end up with a society of light haired, skinny, big breasted women. If androids were to improve upon themselves, I doubt it would be that much different...it would merely be easier and take considerably less time. With us humans, we would call it eugenics. With machines, it would be evolution.

Why an android creates a "better, more jiggling"copy of itself if it can improve itself?
we must sexually reproduce because we can't change fast, And our drive is survive.
what kind of drive you give to a robot-slut?
surely not survival.
i mean, it would be a tank or something in a few generations.

[Stephaniebot]

svengly.. you did not answer if they were alive or not

Hmm,

I think that we'll have to wait until conversion technology becomes closer to possible before this question could be answered.

As things stand, I don't think I have enough information to decide if a person converted to a machine would be alive.

In the strictest sense of the word, the answer has to be no. Even if said machine has the full memories, and thought capacity of the converted human, those processes are now part of a CPU, or whatever. Don't get me wrong, I might well do it, given the chance (though said chance, within my lifetime is unlikely), but I wouldn't be alive, in the truest sense anymore.
Mind, if I'm 80 or 90, and the chance arrives, for an upgrade into a young fembot body, no way do I say no, regardless!