Submission Statement

From the article

Much of researchers’ and journalists’ concerns about the new AI wave have focused on bots’ potential to generate bad answers and misinformation — and its potential to displace human workers. But David Gunkel, a professor of communication studies at Northern Illinois University, is wrestling with a different question: What rights should robots, including AI chatbots, have?

From the article

“This is a really important question because as soon as you mobilize the word “rights,” people immediately jump to “he must be talking about human rights and giving human rights to robots. This sounds absurd.” And it is, in fact, absurd because we’re not talking about human rights. When we talk about rights, we’re talking about social recognitions that can be either designated in terms of moral philosophy or in terms of law.” - Professor David Gunkel

From the article

"When we talk about robot rights or the rights of AI, we’re talking about social integrations of these technologies for the purposes of protecting our moral and legal institutions. - Professor David Gunkel