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by kayo_20211030 168 days ago
In general, under law, dogs are considered property. That's just a fact. It doesn't mean you can be cruel to 'em, but, under most law, they're still property.

The original piece was about Claude having a soul, about a belief that some people consider AI to be "conscious and aware", and how certain people are beginning to treat it more like a person than a machine. Unplugging a computer is unremarkable, but pulling the plug on a "person" most certainly has ethical implications.

1 comments

"In general, under law, dogs are considered property. That's just a fact."

No. Again, this is obviously wrong on the facts. There are hundreds of millions of dogs in the world that are no one's property and that are not considered property by any law.

This is why I say the comparison is deeply confused and unhelpful. It starts with a statement about dogs being "property" that is obviously wrong and then completely ignores the fact that a running AI is someone's property.

If you want to get anywhere, you've got to drop the comparison with dogs and deal with the fact that an AI is someone's property.

very droll