Robot Clones—New Perspectives in Robophilosophy and Technoimmortality
Aura-Elena Schussler
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications 2018 DOI: 10.3233/978-1-61499-931-7-259 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that uploading a mind into a humanoid robot clone would produce only a simulacrum of the original person, a philosophical zombie, rather than a genuine continuation of that person. The authors contend that granting personhood to such clones would overturn anthropocentrism as the fundamental ideological definition of human nature. |
Abstract
The problem of total mind uploading (and consciousness) is far from fully solved at present within both the scientific and philosophical paradigms. At the same time, the hypothesis that a robot clone would represent a substitute of one's own person (based on the mindclone argument) questions not only the future ontological status of robot clones (in society) but also its possible personhood quality, in a process whose result is the overthrow of anthropocentrism, seen as the fundamental ideological definition of human nature. Thus, this research is aimed at analyzing technoimmortality in the robot clones paradigm, starting from the theories of Martine Rothblatt and Ray Kurzweil regarding mind uploading in cyberconsciousness and robot clones theory. The overall objective of this paper is to analyze the hypothesis of robot clones' personhood quality, along with the ontological status issue, based on the arguments of Immanuel Kant, Lynne Rudder Baker, and John Searl. The theoretical objective follows to deconstruct the way in which mind cloning (consciousness theory) into a humanoid robot clone, supported by the arguments of Martine Rothblatt, Ray Kurzweil, and Daniel Dennett, actually leads to a simulacrum of our own person—namely a philosophical zombie—according to the theories put forth by Ned Block, David Chalmers, and Searl. The methodology used is that of Rothblatt, Dennett, and Kurzweil's functional argumentation, alongside Block, Searl, and Chalmers's critique of the artificial consciousness of robot clones, completed by Kantian's argumentative critique of robot clone personhood.