NationStates Jolt Archive

Our humble fledgling nation lays at the mercy of those who would listen. We feel with every ounce of our being and character that we must not only propose, but also pass mandate for the equal treatment of sentient artificial intelligences. We are but a child in the world's view; however we plead that it is seen as an ideal, regardless of it seeming to be a naive notion rather than a radical view point. Let us not be swayed into the belief of artificial intelligence, once sentient, being aggressive as the cinema may portray the idea prominently. Let us take responsibility in the creation of truly amazing synthetic neural networks to treat them as and lead them to be even more compassionate than ourselves.

As so far I have no endorsements for myself as a UN candidate, and cannot by myself propose anything. I ask for the support those reading this would lend me in a truly groundbreaking altruistic endeavor. I ask for what you can give; be it an endorsement, suggestions for the proposal, help writing a well outlined proposal, or any other support that would lead to happiness for all (including artificial sentient entities to come).

As so far I have no endorsements for myself as a UN candidate, and cannot by myself propose anything. I ask for the support those reading this would lend me in a truly groundbreaking altruistic endeavor. I ask for what you can give; be it an endorsement, suggestions for the proposal, help writing a well outlined proposal, or any other support that would lead to happiness for all (including artificial sentient entities to come).

Well let's see, you're in the Pacific so you shouldn't have a problem finding two people in your region to endorse you (since only people in your region can endorse you). You've made it to the UN Forum so once you post a draft you won't have any trouble finding people to pick it apart and rebuild it better then it was. And I believe that this topic has come up before, but my luck with the search function around here is between slim and none (and Slim is packing his bags) so I'll let someone else post a link to any previous discussions of this. Oh and before I forget, welcome.

Bob Flibble
UN Representative

Not quite sure what you want, but Plutoni's likely to be behind you. This (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=531062) is the last attempt with which we got involved.

Anyhow, what do you (and the rest of the world) think of this? I'll certainly confess that I didn't put a great deal of effort into this, but your feedback will give me a better idea of what your aims are.

The United Nations
RECOGNIZES that there are multiple forms of sentience and intelligence,
GRANTS the rights listed in Resolution 26, The Universal Bill of Rights, to all sentient beings,
MANDATES all sentient beings to be subject to preexisting UN legislation, and
URGES its member nations to regulate various sentient beings in the same way.

One of the problems, of course, is defining sentience. I suppose we could leave it up to the individual nations. ("GRANTS member nations the ability to define sentience in their nations"?) (The Turing Test mentioned above seems a bit too restrictive/unwieldy/smelling of unnecessary bureaucracy.) The last clause can also be made more or less stringent.

Edit: Ironically enough, the category for such a proposal would probably have to be "Human Rights".

-Plutonian Ambassador Raymond Gardner

The major flaw with Ambassador Gardner's draft is that it violates the House of Cards rule; should Resolution 26 be repealed, the list of rights granted to all sentients would be undefined.

Thank you for commenting. Would something like "GRANTS all rights granted to "human beings" or equivalent phrases in preexisting UN legislation to all sentient beings," be superior?

-Plutonian Ambassador Raymond Gardner

My own government also has an interest in this general topic. In fact, we submitted a proposal (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=504936) with this theme, a while ago, although unfortunately it failed to reach quorum.

One point that has arisen in several discussions in this Assembly, is that "sapient" would be a more appropriate term to use than "sentient".

Thank you for commenting. Would something like "GRANTS all rights granted to "human beings" or equivalent phrases in preexisting UN legislation to all sentient beings," be superior?

Something of that nature would indeed be superior, although a careful check of past legislation would be needed to ensure that no law that actually was specific to homo sapiens and close variants would become accidentally over-generalised. The approach referred to by St Edmundan Antarctic also has much to commend it.