This week we discussed about our thoughts on ethics and consciousness. On the surface these two things don’t seem related but after reading The Bicentennial Man, I realized the two are tightly intertwined. I first came to this conclusion when in class someone said something along the lines of “If I were to kill a robot but no one could tell it was a robot, I would be charged with murder but if from the start people knew it was a robot, I would be fine”. This made me realize that what we deem ethical and non-ethical all depends on what we deem conscious and non-conscious. This means that if the victim of your actions is conscious enough to realize you’ve wronged them then your actions are unethical, but if the victim of your actions does not have enough consciousness to realize what you’ve done to them is wrong than what you’ve done is ethical. In the past this hasn’t mattered much because the line between being conscious and not being conscious has been clear, but with the robot revolution beginning this is a concept that will have to be looked at deeper.
The Bicentennial man also was a good example of how consciousness can someone make some non-optimal decisions. In my paper for last week I wrote about how consciousness made the human race inefficient. It makes us want pleasure and gives us the choice to risk our lives for it. This is the same for Andrew Martin once he becomes conscious. He willingly gives up the chance to live forever just so he can be labeled as human. Ironically this was a very human decision of him.