Professor Peter Singer: From Animal Rights to Robot Rights By James Reed

Professor Peter Singer came to fame for his advocacy of animal rights in the 1970s, with his book Animal Liberation (1975), which was an early argument for veganism. He has supported a radical redistribution of wealth from the West to the  Third world, as put in his essay,  "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", published in Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1972. He also has pursued topical issues such as IVF and reproductive technologies. He goes down the, what is now standard liberal line, extending the “liberationist” position of the 1960s Western cultural revolution movements. He tended to argue from a simplistic utilitarian position, that the right are the acts that maximise the greatest good for the greatness number. But, he also holds that animals with sentience have rights. How it all fits together I do not know, for all utilitarian positions enable rights to be trumped by over-riding utility.

Anyway, his next big thing is to give civil rights to conscious robots. Of course, human foetuses do not have a right to life, for the utilitarian interests of the mother wanting an abortion, trump them, and they are not the sort of things to have rights. It is unclear why conscious computers should be given moral concern, by his own logic. If the foetus does not have rights by virtue of existence, then why should consciousness be a morally relevant quality? Isn’t this just a form of discrimination and bias?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00048408912343791?journalCode=rajp20 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-08/peter-singer-on-ai-robot-rights/102303010

“Should robots have rights?

The answer is yes, according to Peter Singer.

The Australian ethicist, once described as "the most dangerous man in the world", is the founder of charitable organisation The Life You Can Save and a Princeton University professor of bioethics.

He believes the rise of artificial intelligence poses new challenges for ethicists.

"When robots become conscious, when they also — like humans and animals — become capable of suffering or of enjoying their lives, then certainly they should have rights," he said.

"Someday, undoubtedly, it's possible that an AI could be conscious and convince us that it's conscious."

"And if that's the case, then we need to take account of the AI's interests, just as we would take account of those of another sentient being."

Chat GPT and consciousness

Mr Singer doesn't think we're there yet, and believes machines should not be assumed to have rights if they only have the appearance of consciousness.

"I think what we have is things like ChatGPT, which, if you read it, it sort of looks like it could be a conscious being that is chatting with you," he said.

"But when you understand that this is an artificial intelligence system that's been fed billions of pages from the internet, and has sort of in some way learned from that, how to respond to questions, then I think you realise that this doesn't actually require consciousness."

But actual proof of consciousness may not be necessary for people to want to attach rights to a robot.

"If they're thoughtful about it, they may say, 'Well, I think there's some doubt about it', and we ought to give the robot or AI system the benefit of the doubt'," Professor Singer said.

"I take that kind of stance myself when people talk particularly about invertebrate animals.

"They say, 'Well, you know, do we know whether a lobster is really conscious?' and I would say, look, there is some evidence that a lobster is conscious and capable of feeling pain, and even if we're not completely sure, we should give it the benefit of the doubt.

"I would say the same about AI."

AI poses 'lot of big social questions'

Professor Singer is the first to admit he's still learning.

"There are lots of issues including, of course, privacy issues, discrimination and bias in AI," he said.

"Will AI create a lot of unemployment?

 

"Will it also be such a boon that new jobs are created that people who are made unemployed can take up, or will I not have the skills to do that?

"A lot of big social questions.

"And I should say there are also specific questions for academics like me, about are your students going to use AI to write their essays, and how are you going to know?"

Governments globally have been moving towards developing laws to govern AI and its impacts, with legislators saying humans have to be put first.

"In one sense we don't want to restrict it too much, we don't want to tie a hand behind our back when other countries are moving ahead in ways that may be productive and beneficial," Professor Singer said.

"So it needs thought, definitely, and I think that's starting to happen, but I'm not sure that it's happening in quite the right way or at the right level."

Brakes on free market

In a free market, AI would be likely to spread where accessibility and utility would only be governed by cost.

Professor Singer said it was fair to apply brakes.

"We do regulate markets — child labour might be cheaper but that doesn't mean we allow it, we try to stop it," he said.

"Similarly, with climate change, it may still be cheaper to do things in ways that pollute the atmosphere and put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

"But we are trying to stop people doing that.

"We need to take the same approach with AI, we can't just let the free market govern."

Peter Singer said the impact of AI on animals needed to be considered too.

"I think we need to put all sentient beings first," he said.

"AI is already having an impact on animals, because it's being used, for example, in factory farms in China, in particular, but in some other countries as well.

"But it may make factory farming more difficult to eliminate by allowing higher stocking densities, even in the crowding that exists now."

Food industry threatens animal rights

The views of Professor Singer and others regarding animal rights were seen as radical to many in the 1970s, but progress has been made over the decades, particularly in egg production.

Professor Singer said the food industry represented the biggest danger to animal rights, and meat consumption was rising, despite a shift to plant-based diets.

"Countries that are becoming more prosperous, like China, are producing a lot more meat to feed the demand in that population.

"They're just going in wholesale for enormous factory farms, where the animals are indoors all their lives, crowded together, completely unsuitable conditions for their basic needs."

Professor Singer said some people were moving away from meat products for one key reason.

"As we gradually phase out coal and move to clean energy, then raising animals for food is going to become one of the largest contributors to climate change," he said.

"I think that's an important reason for moving to a plant-based or more plant-based diet. "”