[nineteen999]

> overwhelming need to brag

> moral correctness

The only brag here are these plain and simple examples of virtue signalling. But putting the discussion about animal suffering to one side here, since it is irrelevant in regards to the original point regarding A(G)I - sure they may become useful in the future, but deserving of rights equivalent to animals, let alone humans?

They are tools created by man, nothing more, I would not feel the slightest hesitation about hitting the power switch, disconnecting the battery, or unplugging the power cable at the end of the day if it has outlived its utility, or has malfunctioned in a way that could potentially negatively affect humans (or animals for that matter). Neither should you. There is no sentience there, just simulation. No matter how charming you might find the simulated conversation or sex acts with them.

[nefitty]

There's no way to verify that any other mind is actually experiencing what you interpret as consciousness. We can only ever measure signals, leaks in the form of behaviors. We are reducible to chemical reactions, even as the emergent properties of those reactions are unimaginably complex and impressive.

We all should expand our moral circle. That is the opposite of narcissism and tribalism. We can expand our intuitions to non-human animals, to non-carbon based life forms. It takes imagination. It takes work. The stakes are high, because if we get it wrong with AI, we may unintentionally produce beings that can suffer in amounts that we as individual humans cannot imagine. An AI may experience multiple experiences at once, feel many feelings at once, live many lives at once, all within the span of a second.

The potential for suffering, if nothing else, is reason enough to seriously consider automaton rights as on the same scope as animal and human rights.