Richard Rorty argued that stories, rather than ethical principles, are at the heart of morality. For Rorty, the basic question of morality is which groups to recognize as persons entitled to respect. Stories about women and slaves made privileged people recognize them as people who matter.
Within Rorty’s framing, it feels like The Wild Robot, Wall-E, and stories like that prime us to (eventually) recognize the personhood of robots. I suppose those would be important stories if we succeeded in creating conscious entities that desire to continue living*, but since there are (VERY!) good reasons not to build these entities now, we need stories that highlight the risks as you’ve discussed.
* And we retained full power over them. (Edit was to add this)
Richard Rorty argued that stories, rather than ethical principles, are at the heart of morality. For Rorty, the basic question of morality is which groups to recognize as persons entitled to respect. Stories about women and slaves made privileged people recognize them as people who matter.
Within Rorty’s framing, it feels like The Wild Robot, Wall-E, and stories like that prime us to (eventually) recognize the personhood of robots. I suppose those would be important stories if we succeeded in creating conscious entities that desire to continue living*, but since there are (VERY!) good reasons not to build these entities now, we need stories that highlight the risks as you’ve discussed.
* And we retained full power over them. (Edit was to add this)