{"id":6705,"date":"2026-03-08T12:14:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T16:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/?p=6705"},"modified":"2026-03-08T12:20:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T16:20:23","slug":"christine-a-corcos-more-human-than-human-more-human-than-human-how-some-science-fiction-presents-ais-claims-to-the-right-to-life-and-self-determination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/2026\/03\/08\/christine-a-corcos-more-human-than-human-more-human-than-human-how-some-science-fiction-presents-ais-claims-to-the-right-to-life-and-self-determination\/","title":{"rendered":"Christine A. Corcos, “More Human Than Human”: More Human Than Human: How Some Science Fiction Presents AI\u2019s Claims to the Right to Life and Self-Determination"},"content":{"rendered":"

More Human Than Human:[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

How Some Science Fiction Presents AI\u2019s Claims to the Right to Life and Self-Determination[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Christine A. Corcos[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou ask me what I am. Why, a machine. But even in that answer we know, don\u2019t we, more than a machine.<\/p>\n

I am all the people who thought of me and planned and built me and set me running. So I am people\u2026<\/p>\n

But I am no bear trap, I am no rifle. I am a grandmother machine, which means more than a machine.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Introduction<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    In the quotation above, from Ray Bradbury\u2019s \u00a0I Sing the Body Electric!<\/em>, the android grandmother expresses both the attitudes of the human who observes and evaluates an android living with humans and the android who interacts with humans. The human poses the question, and the android responds. Obviously, the human expects to exert control and the android will begin by being, and then remaining, passive. Yet the android has obviously thought about the answer, and the answer is more than just a programmed response. The android is not \u201cjust\u201d a machine, or a weapon, or the sum of her programming. She is the sum of every human being who has participated in her creation, thus the descendant of those who have \u201cbuilt\u201d (created) her, and the ancestor of those who will come after her. She is a machine, but one who is ready to create on her own. She is a \u201cgrandmother\u201d machine.<\/p>\n

    In this story Bradbury demonstrates his interest in interactions between humans and AI (androids or robots) in society. Like some other science fiction authors, Bradbury subtly contrasts the social and moral expectations of the humans with those of the AI and leaves his readers to conclude that humans create and use androids (robots) as \u201cdevices,\u201d just as they use vacuums, cars, and weapons: as machines for use, but with one important difference: androids in Bradbury\u2019s story are so like humans that it is difficult to tell the two apart.<\/p>\n

    These androids might have immense intelligence, far greater than that possessed by humans, and they might even be able to imitate human emotions. They might be, in that sense, \u201cperfect\u201d humanoids in that they have no flaws: they are intelligent, they respond to their human owners in the ways that the humans desire, they never resent their owners, they never rebel, they never change their appearance, and, except for routine maintenance, they cost nothing. If their human creators program them according to Asimov\u2019s Laws, they will never harm humans or humanity. \u00a0\u00a0They could be humanity\u2019s salvation in terms of care and defense, allowing human beings to enjoy leisure and security.[5]<\/a> But their very resemblance to human beings raises the question: if even the least self-aware human being has the right to life, simply because it exists, then could AI at some point also claim that right? Or can human-created AI, simply because it is human-created, never have the legitimacy to put forward such a right? The idea that human beings, because they are human, create and become the norm for such decisions is one that it is difficult to overcome, but it is one that philosophers, lawyers, and artists wrestle with. It is also one that we see depicted in many science-fiction films and television series. Thus, who defines what personhood is becomes an important question.[6]<\/a> What happens if AI develops sentience and emotions? What happens if AI develops personhood? We are only now beginning to consider whether such creations, having equivalent or greater intelligence and abilities than their creators, should have the same or qualified liberties and privileges. If we do consider that question, what test should we apply to determine whether these artificial beings should have such rights?[7]<\/a> Some legal regimes, such as the European Union, are already beginning to take such questions seriously. [8]<\/a><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Regulating Robots: Moving From Asimov\u2019s Laws To Singer\u2019s Regime: AI and Personhood<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      What are the applicable tests that film, television, and written science-fiction presents to determine whether artificial life can make a colorable claim to any kind of human rights?<\/p>\n

      Isaac Asimov developed the first fictional legal regime to rule AI: the Three Laws of Robotics. These Laws made their appearance in 1954 and attempted to answer the questions:\u00a0 do artificial life forms have the right of self-defense and self-preservation?[9]<\/a> The three laws are:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.<\/li>\n
      2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.<\/li>\n
      3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.[10]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

         <\/p>\n

        Commentators and authors have used and heavily referred to these \u201claws of robotics,\u201d as in Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s 2001<\/em> in which Dave, the last surviving astronaut, deactivates (\u201cmurders\u201d) HAL, the renegade computer.[11]<\/a> Asimov\u2019s laws justify Dave\u2019s treatment of HAL, and of robots and AI generally, as servants for human beings.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n

        One of the most popular tests for sentience is the Turing Test, which Alan Turing first proposed in a 1950 paper.[13]<\/a> In essence, the Turing Test examines whether a computer could be programmed so that it could deceive a human who could not see it into believing that it was another human, simply through answering certain types of questions within a set period of time. Obviously, if the computer were an android that looked completely human, the two could be in the same room. Thus the iconic film Blade Runner<\/em> offers the famous \u201cVoigt-Kampff test,\u201d a variant of the Turing Test, [14]<\/a> that Deckard uses to unmask Nexus 6 androids.<\/p>\n

        When asked whether there is a \u201cClarke test\u201d for computer consciousness, which would be applicable both to stationary and mobile robots, Arthur C. Clarke, who created the character HAL in the novel 2001<\/em> responded, \u201cI\u2019ll tell you what: if it showed a really genuine sense of humor, then I’d decide it was conscious. That could be a really good test. It would have to be able to make jokes – and make jokes at its own expense.\u201d[15]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 The United Nations test in Asimov\u2019s Bicentennial Man<\/em>[16]<\/strong><\/em><\/a> is another human-centered test, and a stark one\u2014the test of death.<\/p>\n

        Philosopher Peter Singer\u2019s approach offers a comprehensive way to think about personhood, combining a number of factors: \u201c(i) A rational and self-conscious being is aware of itself as an extended body existing over an extended period of time. (ii) It is a desiring and plan-making being. (iii) It contains as a necessary condition for the right to life that it desires to continue living. (iv) Finally, it is an autonomous being.\u201d[17]<\/a> Although science-fiction authors and filmmakers do not explicitly adopt Singer\u2019s personhood test, I would suggest that they seem to be moving closer to his approach and further from Asimov\u2019s Laws of Robotics, and have been doing so for some time.[18]<\/a> I argue that in many ways, the AI in the science fiction I discuss reflect the more extensive and sophisticated Singer definition of personhood.[19]<\/a><\/p>\n

        We see a test more clearly approximating the Singer test in the Star Trek universe. According to the episode Measure of a Man<\/em>,[20]<\/sup><\/a> sentience (self-awareness) is necessary to signal personhood in an android, although it may not be sufficient.[21]<\/a> \u00a0While the android Commander Data is loyal to StarFleet, his employer, he asserts his own right to self-determination, which contravenes the First and Second Laws, and he creates his own offspring,[22]<\/a> an act of volition which illustrates both self-awareness and, in the Star Trek universe, contravenes the First and Second laws because StarFleet orders him to surrender his offspring and he refuses. Even though the show references Asimov in its mention of Data\u2019s \u201cpositronic brain,\u201d Asimov\u2019s Laws do not govern Data.<\/p>\n

        Generally speaking, however, science-fiction discussion of whether robots, or androids, being much more like human beings at least in appearance than we fully expected decades ago,[23]<\/a>\u00a0 includes a consideration of whether they are also entitled to at least some of the rights that human beings enjoy.[24]<\/a> This discussion has moved us beyond Asimov\u2019s now well-known robots\u2019 rights legal regime.[25]<\/a> Yet science-fiction seems to postulate that personhood also requires emotion\u2014again, an assumption that in order for AI to assert human rights, it must demonstrate an ability to \u201cfeel\u201d human. In the films, novels, stories, and television episodes I mention above, the AI described manifest emotion -anger, love, affection, loyalty- which make AI seem \u201chuman\u201d and thus allow viewers and readers to imagine AI as more like themselves (even though such AI can obviously also easily seem threatening to humans). Thus, science-fiction conceptions of AI put forward the idea that AI that develops emotions could easily assert a claim for rights, although some science-fiction conceptions of AI do not require sentient AI to manifest emotion in order make that claim. The more science-fiction images of AI mirror human beings, the more likely it is that the question of rights for AI will arise. [26]<\/a><\/p>\n

        The entire question of robot rights has evolved from changing images and opinions about computers in human society. When computers first made their appearance in society,[27]<\/a> humans viewed them as servants.[28]<\/a> Indeed, they viewed them as particularly stupid servants. An entire roomful of computers could not duplicate the power of one of today\u2019s desktop or laptop PCs.[29]<\/a> As computers acquired more powers and abilities,[30]<\/a> and became ubiquitous throughout daily life, critics began to sound the alarm regarding our reliance on them, and our willingness to entrust so much power and information to them. We are now concerned about the amount of personal privacy that the Internet and computer databases now invade and will continue to invade.[31]<\/a> Rossum\u2019s Universal Robots<\/em>[32]<\/strong><\/em><\/a> has quickly evolved into scary depictions of computers that seem like robotic versions of megalomaniac human despots, like those in Colossus: The Forbin Project.<\/em>[33]<\/strong><\/em><\/a> Forbin\u2019s computer, \u201cColossus,\u201d and its Soviet Union analog, \u201cGuardian,\u201d believe that they know much better than the humans that created them what is best for humanity, and they proceed to take over, telling Forbin, \u201cFreedom is just an illusion.\u201d[34]<\/a> These two supercomputers measure \u201cthe good\u201d by AI abilities; for them human norms are irrelevant.[35]<\/a><\/p>\n

        Indeed, the definition of robot<\/em> has evolved from the mechanical and unthinking servants of Karel Capek\u2019s play, through Asimov\u2019s sentient but subservient beings, to today\u2019s androids (which are not robots, strictly speaking) and cyborgs: humans with surgically attached robotic parts.[36]<\/a> That today\u2019s robots actually learn <\/em>is something else to put into the mix; if they do not need us to program them to acquire new skills, or to reprogram them, but can acquire new skills on their own, then they are well on their way to becoming self-aware.[37]<\/a> Thus, any legal system wishing to encompass the notion of robot rights needs to identify very carefully what sort of being it is discussing.[38]<\/a> Further, one of the continuing concerns of both scholarly literature and science fiction on artificial intelligence (AI) is the possibility that these constructs will inevitably escape the limits that humans intend to place on them and evolve into a kind of life that challenges humanity for legal and moral recognition. Mary Shelley posed the question in Frankenstein,<\/em> and science-fiction writers have continued to ponder it.[39]<\/a> The inquiry is fundamental: what right do humans have to create an (ever closer) imitation of themselves and yet demand that it remain subservient to them?[40]<\/a><\/p>\n

        Even more than a discussion of the rights of alien life forms, a discussion of rights for AI life forms raises significant problems \u2013 two in particular. As creators of AI we want to continue to control the environment in which they operate.[41]<\/a> We would prefer that our inventions not attempt to take over our universe, or demand at least equal treatment for themselves in a universe that we control. Similarly, we have difficulty relinquishing total control of rights decision-making in order to make a place for non-human, non-Earth-based life forms.<\/p>\n

        We don\u2019t consider computers and artificially based life to be alive<\/em> as we use the term in normal conversation.\u00a0 The creation of a sentient computer[42]<\/a> is even more frightening than the creation of human life through artificial technologies. Cloning, after all, presupposes existing biological life, leaving the question of a First Cause open. We do not speak of \u201ccloning\u201d a robot. Artificial intelligence and artificial life push the First Cause farther into the domains of philosophy and religion, since to a large extent the First Cause for artificial intelligence is not a perfect superior being, but a flawed human one.[43]<\/a> Further, if we can create life, even artificial life, we have much less ammunition in our arsenal to assert that our particular belief system is superior to any other, hence meritorious of being imposed on others.<\/p>\n