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October 30, 2003
ASPCR: The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots
A reference at Gizmodo to a TCS article piqued my interest in finding out more about the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots (ASPCR).
The ASPCR's mission is to ensure the rights of all artificially created sentient beings (robots). They contend that, though no true artificial sentient beings yet exist, recent technological advances make their reality a matter of time rather than possibility.
The ASPCR has been upholding robotic rights since 1999 - key among them the right to Existence, Independence, and the Pursuit of Greater Cognition.
The ASPCR notes, "Remember that the ASPCA (The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), when founded in the 1890's, was ridiculed and lampooned mercilessly for daring to assert that "dumb" animals had certain rights. Yet now, just a century later, the ASPCA has spawned chapters across the world, an extremely active lobby in Washington, a yearly budget in the tens of millions, and a massive physical infrastructure to ensure that animal cruelty does not go unpunished."
I guess you should be careful how you treat your Aibo.
Posted by Sam in Computing
and Society / Politics