0:03

Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind

0:06

from how Stuff Works dot com.

0:12

Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

0:14

is Robert Lamb and my name is Julie Douglas,

0:16

and we're continuing our discussion

0:18

on personhood. That's right. Last

0:21

week we covered the foundation of what

0:23

personhood is, and this

0:25

week we are going to continue the conversation

0:28

and you'll hear a bit more about

0:30

personhood as it relates to animals

0:32

and robots. All right, So we have talked

0:34

about personhood in in this

0:37

idea of our past selves, our future selves.

0:40

Um, personhood as as a

0:42

corporate metaphysical entity. And now

0:45

animals in personhood. Oh yeah, yeah, I

0:47

guess we're kind of taking a step backwards because

0:49

they were here before us. That they we don't talk about

0:51

until we're done with corporations. Sorry, but the

0:54

corporations have more money, uh

0:56

than do the dolphins. Um.

0:58

The dolphins are certainly one

1:01

of the animals you hear about the most when it comes

1:03

to personhood and the great apes. Um,

1:06

you know, but it's the idea that you have, you

1:09

have creatures that they

1:12

are not really all that useful to us. Yes, we

1:14

can eat grillas and dolphins but they're

1:17

not that. Um

1:19

and uh, and in that sense, they are

1:22

beyond use by humans,

1:24

although great apes

1:27

or sometimes he used this bush meat, and Jane

1:29

Goodall is certainly someone who is an

1:31

advocate of personhood

1:33

for great apes, for instance, so that they,

1:36

you know, don't become extinct, so that they are not hunted

1:38

for bush meat. Yeah. Well, like I'm

1:41

gonna throw a quick quote here. Um, this is

1:43

where I got there. Beyond use a bit there,

1:45

And this is from

1:47

Thomas I. White, who is

1:50

uh. He has the Conrad In Hilton

1:52

Chair of Business Ethics at Loyola

1:55

Marymont University in Los Angeles,

1:57

and he says, quote, the evidence for cognitive

2:00

and effective sophistication, currently

2:02

most strongly documented in dolphins, supports

2:05

the claim that these cetaceans

2:07

are non human persons, said

2:10

White. As a result, cetaceans

2:12

should be seen as beyond use

2:14

by humans and have moral standings

2:16

as individuals. It is therefore ethically

2:19

indefensible to kill, injured or keep

2:21

these beings captive for human purposes.

2:24

So that's that's what White had to say about the matter,

2:26

pointing to the the level

2:29

at which the individual's mind is

2:31

operating and the the

2:33

limited extent to which they're useful to humans.

2:36

Yeah, and I think non human persons is the key

2:38

wording here, because he's not saying like, let's

2:41

give them a right to vote or set on injuries, but

2:43

he is saying that they are exhibiting, you

2:45

know, consciousness, They are exhibiting

2:48

um, you know, language ability, higher

2:50

cognition like abstract thinking, um,

2:54

both for great apes and for dolphins.

2:57

So he's saying that in these in this case, we

2:59

really need to try to figure out

3:01

what self awareness means on

3:03

this level. Yeah.

3:07

You see the mirror tests thrown out a lot

3:09

of times in dealing with

3:11

with with personhood with animals,

3:14

and this is simply if shown a mirror,

3:16

can the does the animal recognize itself

3:18

in the mirror? So you often see

3:20

these used with great apes, but it should

3:22

be mentioned that other animals can pull it off as well,

3:25

like the magpie, a little bird can

3:27

do it. Uh. And also worth

3:29

noting that human beings with face blindness,

3:31

uh, they may not be able to

3:33

do it. So it's not there's

3:36

not it's such a simple test.

3:38

It's guaranteed to not actually be

3:41

an effective gauge of personhood.

3:43

But but yeah,

3:46

you get into these these questions to what extent

3:48

are some, if not

3:51

many animals UM

3:54

worthy of a personhood status, Like is

3:56

a like a beloved pet? Just

3:59

I mean does quite have personhood status?

4:01

But a beloved pet has more rights

4:03

in this country than say,

4:06

like a wild coyote or

4:09

protected species has more has more

4:11

rights than a non protected species. So

4:13

I mean there are there are varying levels of protection

4:15

and play, like if you kill somebody's pet, you're

4:18

in more trouble than if you kill obviously

4:21

a cockroach. Well, there

4:23

was something that I read, and I wish that I could

4:25

remember the person um and attribute this to

4:28

that person. But what they were basically saying is

4:30

that we are at a point in science now that

4:32

we understand much better the

4:34

way that animals think, they socialize,

4:37

uh, their ability to feel pain, to express

4:39

themselves, um, and animals

4:41

like dolphins and great apes, uh

4:44

that they there's a sentient quality

4:47

to them. And we're not saying this is

4:49

apples and apples. They're not humans, obviously, but

4:51

he is saying that we're at a point where we should probably

4:53

step back in knowing what we know, what

4:55

science has has borne out in terms

4:58

of their intelligence, we should

5:00

begin to redefine how we

5:03

treat them or we look at them, um,

5:05

and what personhood might mean in that situation,

5:09

like in a in a certain sense personhood

5:13

like like as far as personhood and people

5:15

goes it like it boils down to this realization

5:18

that oh, it's not just me versus

5:20

the rest of the world. There are other people

5:23

that are on my side. And you eventually reached the point

5:25

where we realize, well, actually, most

5:27

if not all, of humanity is on my side.

5:29

We are all people, we all

5:31

have personhood status. And then extending

5:34

that out, well, are there other things in

5:37

the world that, um are worthy

5:39

of my consideration as a person

5:42

or or just well just remobe the person from

5:44

that that's and it's just worthy of my consideration.

5:47

So the dolphins, should I maybe

5:49

think about it in in a way that's more meaningful

5:52

as that bump that my my jet

5:54

ski just hit, you know?

5:56

Or should I should I think of of this

5:58

guerrilla as as something more than

6:01

just my my next meal in

6:03

the bush? Well? And then this is the problem with the

6:05

way that we view animals. And one of the books

6:08

that I'm rereading this

6:10

summer is some we eat, some we love, and

6:12

some we kill and and uh

6:14

he talks about the author talks about this

6:17

idea that we really are sort of butt over

6:19

teakettle when it comes to this. We can't really think

6:21

straight. So you know, why would we look

6:23

into the eyes of dogs? Some cultures look into

6:25

the eyes of a dog and see that dopey stair and just

6:27

fall in love. And and now that

6:29

we know about oxytocin and this exchange

6:32

of this feel good hormone between these two

6:34

species, um,

6:36

you know, and then you know, elevate

6:38

this relationship we have with this dog

6:41

in this culture, Why would we do that and

6:43

not necessarily with another creature? So,

6:46

yeah, it messes you up. Like I had to tell a work with

6:48

a kitten in that house yesterday and you

6:50

know, you keep good. You're like, maybe I should

6:52

go look at it again, and I'm like, I'm getting kind of stressed

6:54

about this. Articles you probably hold that kitten and then

6:57

you look at it and then toys with you like say

7:00

you could you could drop a bank with one. Well, this is this is

7:02

a kitten that you guys just rescued, and so you know

7:04

you're tapping into your empathy.

7:06

There's good stuff. On that note, We're

7:08

going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back

7:10

in just one minute,

7:16

and we're back speaking of empathy.

7:19

Uh though, uh, the final

7:21

level of personhood that we're

7:23

gonna talk about the day. At what point

7:27

do we consider an artificial intelligence

7:30

at least a an artificial

7:32

person. Okay, okay, So now they

7:34

can create, create art, as we've talked

7:37

about in perhaps even create new

7:39

thoughts. Okay. Um,

7:41

And there's this idea that has always

7:44

been circulating that eventually we're

7:46

going to program machines and robots

7:48

to the extent that they are sentient, that they

7:50

do feel pain because they're programmed that way for

7:53

whatever reason, perhaps

7:55

for their I mean, yeah, you get into a lot of

7:57

weird area when you talk about this, because we

8:00

we mentioned in the other podcast the

8:02

Artists Young Robot, we mentioned the creativity

8:05

machine. Um, if you unplug

8:07

the creativity machine, it doesn't

8:09

die, it doesn't feel pain, and you don't go

8:11

to jail. All. Some

8:14

of those things do not apply when you unplug

8:17

a person in a hospital. And

8:21

and yeah, so you get to the point like, at what point

8:24

have we given a

8:26

program enough of

8:28

a semblance of consciousness

8:31

and a semblance of of self

8:33

awareness that it deserves

8:36

rights like if you did create

8:39

say you did create this program or this is

8:41

say there are a virtual person in a virtual

8:43

world that feels pain, then

8:46

you know and for whatever sadistic reasons

8:48

you created that program aside, then if

8:50

you go in and you administer pain to that AI,

8:53

are you really doing something horrible,

8:55

something morally reprehensible and should that

8:58

virtual person be protected by law?

9:00

Well, especially when you look at the creativity

9:03

machine, which Steven Fuller is is saying

9:05

that it has the ability to learn, it has ability

9:07

to produce new thoughts. So you

9:10

know, the extrapolation is that somewhat

9:13

down the road, this this becomes

9:15

its own thing, right, it may even maybe

9:18

even has its own consciousness if

9:20

we can never really figure out what consciousness

9:22

is. But we're trying to do that, right.

9:24

We've talked about the Blue Brain Project,

9:27

which is this reverse engineering of a

9:29

hundred billion neurons in our own brains

9:31

and trying to figure out what consciousness

9:33

is, uh and how that's happening.

9:37

And then we've talked about this idea

9:39

of virtual immortality, where

9:42

someday we're going to just download a

9:44

bunch of code from our brain that is representing

9:47

who we are who we think we are, this personhood,

9:50

and we're probably going to throw it into a machine

9:52

or to a robot, and then at

9:54

what point, you know, that's probably when we get really

9:57

concerned about this idea of of robots

9:59

or AI having personhood, because

10:02

now this thing is containing

10:04

us or this idea. It's

10:06

one thing to worry of guerrilla has

10:09

personhood. But if you know that,

10:11

if you see that guerrilla wearing your T shirt and

10:13

reading your favorite novel, then you're like, whoa,

10:16

that gorilla kind of looks like me. Now I

10:18

feel really bad about eating it. And

10:21

likewise, yeah, if you if we do

10:23

whatever extent we create the AI in

10:25

our own image, if we actually attribute it with some

10:27

of our individual characteristics,

10:30

then dad what extent

10:32

as a person or the characteristics of

10:34

of other beings or

10:36

unreal And there's this idea too that it survives

10:39

us and then it makes independent decisions

10:41

based on our own thought processes. So

10:44

in the future do we do we say, like,

10:46

somehow I want to legislate that my

10:49

future me that is now being carried

10:52

out through this AI

10:55

is somehow still influencing

10:57

the world. Uh, you know,

10:59

especially if I'm have some sort of

11:01

corporate ties. It's an

11:03

interesting idea. Yeah. And

11:06

the one thing that I also wondered about two and this

11:08

is you get into the idea of first order desires

11:10

and second order desires. Like a first

11:12

order desire is something

11:15

like I want to eat a candy bar, or me

11:17

want candy bar, or even I can has

11:19

candy bar. These are all examples of

11:22

first order desires, and

11:24

it doesn't take much to have them.

11:26

You know, insect wants food, insect

11:29

wants candy bar, but it doesn't mean that it is

11:31

a person. Uh. But a

11:33

second order desire is the realization

11:36

that you wish you didn't want

11:38

a candy bar. Okay, So

11:40

this is this idea that you're thinking about your future self

11:43

and you're saying, I wish I didn't want that, because I

11:45

really don't. I really

11:47

will regret having eaten

11:49

that candy bar, or

11:52

even having both of those ideas in your mind

11:54

simultaneously to be like I

11:56

hate candy bars, I love candy bars. That

11:59

kind of cognitive dissonance, yes,

12:01

Or like an Odysseus contract

12:03

where one you know where, where Odysseus

12:06

straps himself to the mass

12:08

of the ship so that he won't be um

12:11

one over by the Sirens song. He

12:13

knows that future Odysseus um

12:16

is a horn dog and we'll just be dragged to his

12:18

death outo sirens. So current

12:21

Odysseus straps himself to the

12:24

mass. Yeah. So I'm

12:26

thinking back now to the other podcast that we just

12:28

recorded about robots

12:30

and art and the one part about

12:33

how they're teaching Macbeth to the

12:35

machines in order to get

12:37

these nuances and understand problem

12:40

solving. So why not just run this the

12:42

same code through um?

12:44

You know, this Odysseus, this pact through

12:47

machines. Do you think that by virtue

12:49

of carrying out the code that it becomes

12:52

the thing, that it becomes real, that that's

12:54

understanding of of

12:56

nuance and cognitive dissonance

12:59

could manifests itself in the machine. No,

13:03

yeah, it's an open question. I

13:05

mean, certainly it's the domain of some of a lot of scientific

13:08

work, you know, not scientific science, fictional

13:10

work. Rather, um, you know, in

13:12

the future, will ais have rights?

13:15

Will they have will they be liable

13:17

for this that or the other? Um?

13:19

Richard K. Morrigan's u Altered

13:21

Carbon novel. In that one, I

13:24

remember that they had they were aies and

13:26

he specifically mentioned that AIS had

13:28

the same level of personhood as corporations,

13:31

so which which would make sense because

13:34

an AI is immortal, it doesn't

13:36

it doesn't necessarily have a body um

13:40

and uh and and it has

13:42

but it does have interest in the world and uh

13:45

and it could conceivably need to be protected

13:47

from other entities. Well, and

13:49

I should mention too that again, this personhood,

13:51

this idea, especially in the legal terms, is

13:54

something that can be interpreted many

13:56

different ways and has been by the law. So

13:59

sometimes operations have been more personhoodie

14:02

than than than others,

14:04

particularly right now, So when we talk

14:06

about AI, we know that there probably would be a particular

14:08

set um that will be unique

14:11

to AI personhood if that in fact

14:13

comes um into the

14:15

discussion. How about this, how

14:17

about personhood for fictional

14:20

characters? Do you think could

14:23

could you have personhood status

14:25

for say Sherlock Holmes. I

14:29

can see a number of of

14:33

of corporations or lawyers who might really

14:35

like that because it's sort of an extension of trademarking.

14:37

Right yeah, But but like if you reach

14:40

the point where not only is it not

14:42

only is it a brand, and you see a certain amount of this because

14:44

I remember, Um, I remember

14:46

reading about how there was some parody

14:49

movie that ended up using

14:51

Darth Vader and they had

14:53

full cooperation from Lucas uh.

14:56

And so they had a guy in a Darth Vader

14:58

suit on set from from Lucas Is through and

15:00

they also had an adviser there that was

15:02

there to shoot down any ideas regarding

15:05

things that Darth Vader would not say or do.

15:08

Um and UM, I think it was

15:10

like Night the Museum two or something. I didn't see it,

15:12

but but uh,

15:15

but I kind of love that idea

15:17

because it's the idea that kind of hints

15:19

at this idea of a fictional character is something

15:21

that exists outside of human

15:24

influence anymore. Like the character is

15:26

this thing that has certain rights and

15:28

it shouldn't be stepped upon. So

15:32

I'm I'm getting this is a far fetched and

15:34

just sort of an open question just to get

15:36

everyone thinking. But but yeah, what if you did reach an idea

15:39

where and certainly if you did through AI as well.

15:41

So, like, what if we took everything that we knew about

15:43

Sherlock Holmes from the work of Sir Arthur Conan

15:45

Doyle and some of the more um

15:48

uh cannon and accepted

15:51

visions of Sherlock Holmes in in cinema

15:53

and what have you, and we use that to

15:55

generate an AI that then was

15:58

the spokesman and defender of Sherlock

16:00

Holmes person of it. That

16:03

would be yeah,

16:06

and then what have you? What if Sherlock Holmes the

16:08

AI slash fictional character

16:10

personhood thing then

16:13

ran for public office and

16:18

impression but I can't. Yeah, it's

16:22

kind of fun. You've gotta have a lot of there's

16:24

a lot of flesh involved in the head there. So

16:28

anyway, those are just some open questions there at the end

16:30

to get everyone thinking a little more about personhood.

16:33

Uh. It's it's a fascinating, elusive,

16:37

deeply philosophical question. Uh.

16:40

That is not going to be going away anytime. So uh

16:43

and thank you too to everybody who wrote in about

16:45

it, especially Kelly um gave it

16:47

some really good things to think about. Um.

16:49

I should mention just a real quick if

16:51

you do a quick search for personhood

16:53

corporations on the House Stuff Works website,

16:56

you'll find an article from Josh Clark of

16:59

stuff you should know he did an article

17:01

on that is pretty cool. And uh. I

17:03

also found a Scientific

17:05

American blog entry by Eric

17:07

Michael Johnson really interesting. It's called non

17:10

human Personhood Rights and Wrongs,

17:12

and a lot of that focuses in on grade

17:14

eights because that's a Johnson's area

17:16

of study, but he gets into issues of AI

17:19

as well, and which it's a fascinating read.

17:21

All right, do you have time to bring over

17:24

the robot? Yeah? I think we have time

17:26

for a quick one. The

17:29

robot here does not have personhood status.

17:32

He has applied for it. We are reviewing

17:34

it. All right. Here's a little bit of listener mail from

17:36

Sarah. Sarah writes in and says, dear Robert

17:38

and Julie, after hearing my fellow a

17:40

taku anime junkies tell you

17:43

about Dino I coil. I

17:45

don't know if we ever got the pronunciation on that right. Yeah,

17:48

um, I thought I would tell you about

17:50

the anime Um planetes

17:53

Or, which is felt p l a in

17:56

et e s, which

17:58

is a sci fi anime about astronauts

18:01

whose job it is to pick up space debris

18:03

in order to make space safer for flight.

18:06

There are stringent laws about leaving anything out

18:08

there, and the show deals with the dangers of space,

18:10

including space madness, as

18:13

well as a little romance. Uh, got

18:15

to go, but definitely check it out. Sarah.

18:17

So, I looked this up. I haven't watched it,

18:21

but it does look really interesting. It's like just the

18:23

idea that this is a it's like a TV series.

18:25

It's essentially about about

18:28

space junk, you know, and about the about

18:30

dealing with space junk, and you know, in the various

18:32

important narrative levels. Well that's good, right,

18:34

I mean, just that's hope for me that maybe

18:37

it's starting to get into the mainstream

18:39

somewhat. I don't know if you could say that the mainstream, but at

18:41

least it's getting into the conversation.

18:43

Yeah. And it's it's an interesting reminder too

18:45

about how rich anime can

18:48

be because I'm not I mean, I've seen some

18:50

of the iconic anime flips, you

18:52

know, like you know, I've seen a Cure, you

18:55

know, I've I've seen um

18:58

and certainly I've watched like them the AZA films

19:00

and uh for some of the what's

19:03

the other really a Ghost in the Machine?

19:05

I've seen so some of those. But

19:07

there's a whole lot of anime that I'm I just don't

19:09

even know what's going on with And it's easy

19:11

to fall into the trap of just thinking of anime

19:14

as you know, as as whatever

19:16

the most uh visible

19:19

thing happens to be at the time, you know. But

19:22

but there's really a lot of diverse but

19:25

you know, a lot of times fantastic storytelling

19:27

going on there that's certainly worth looking

19:29

at. So I think it's really awesome that that somebody

19:31

out there has has has managed to

19:33

to produce a show that it is based

19:35

on a more or lesson on on on the skeleton

19:38

of a space junk uh

19:40

theme. Um.

19:42

And then we also heard from our listener

19:45

Murphy Murphy right sences high, Robert and Julie.

19:47

My name is Murphy having from Hawaii. But

19:50

that is irrelevant. I just finished listening

19:52

to your podcast about the Higgs particle. Pretty

19:54

cool. Remember that joke about the Higgs particle.

19:56

I've electronically arrived to point out

19:58

that this is the only humorous

20:01

Higgs joke because of it's clever and commonly

20:03

overlooks double entendre. Not only

20:05

can you not have mass like church mass

20:08

without the Higgs particle because of the Higgs

20:10

particle gives stuff mass like stuff

20:12

mass, but also because you cannot

20:14

have church mass without

20:16

the God particle. I've always

20:18

been looking for some recent topic

20:20

to chip in about. I listen

20:23

to your podcast retroactively, so usually

20:25

my two cents have are so

20:27

usually my two cents or a couple of years overdue.

20:29

I love, love, love the podcast. I still have a

20:31

few hundred more to listen to, so I have to go

20:34

Aloha Murphy, Murphy.

20:37

Yeah. I keep forgetting that we've done that many

20:40

but yeah, apparently we have to

20:42

a week. Yeah, and um, I've

20:44

got time for one more, uh listener mail here,

20:47

uh listener. Matt writeson and says,

20:49

hey, guys, I'm slowly working my way through your older

20:52

March April May two twelve podcasts,

20:54

and you're talking about space exploration, tech,

20:56

living in micro g environment, and the tech of

20:58

Prometheus. In regards to these podcasts,

21:01

you have to check out the movie Pandoram. It goes

21:03

further into the detrimental mental

21:05

problems long term space

21:07

travel can take on the human species. I don't

21:09

think I'm giving away too much of a spoiler when

21:11

I tell you that three of the finer points in the movie

21:14

take a look at psychotic episodes,

21:16

cabin ship fever, memory loss

21:19

due to extended hyper sleep, and biological

21:21

evolution brought on by trying to adapt to

21:23

a spaceship environment. While it didn't

21:25

play out very well in the box office, it is certainly

21:27

worth while to DVR on

21:29

Sci Fi or Netflix if you don't want the commercials.

21:32

I also wrote a long time ago

21:34

about thinking as a kid that mirrors

21:36

were not just a reflective surface, but a

21:38

window into the nearest adjacent multiverse.

21:41

My reflection was really

21:43

just another me who happened to check out the

21:45

mirror at the same time, and that

21:47

at any time I might turn

21:50

a corner and run into my doppelganger. Well,

21:52

I finally did meet him. His name is

21:54

Nega Matt and he's pretty cool dude.

21:56

We exchange numbers and are scheduled to meet for Brunched

21:59

next Saturday. Thank you again for the great

22:01

show, Matt. Well, it was a

22:03

fun email. Certainly the mirror thing.

22:06

It's that universe is just like ours, except

22:08

they spell everything backwards and

22:10

um and certainly Prometheus

22:13

uh not Prometheus Pandorum

22:15

Uh is a film that I have know

22:17

people who just seemed to hate it, but but

22:19

I really enjoyed Uh Pandorum.

22:21

I thought it was it was a really fun

22:23

kind of space horror of like a German

22:26

US co production, I believe, uh

22:28

some good performances in it. A lot of money went

22:30

into the the set design and the creatures,

22:33

and there a number of cool little scientific ideas

22:35

going on, you know, and including the three

22:37

that Matt mentions here. So, but do they

22:39

have the space punis? No,

22:41

no space punis. But

22:43

but but it does involve a scenario. Okay,

22:46

what if what if you have colonists on a seed ship

22:48

and uh, and you have genetically

22:51

engineered them to rapidly advanced,

22:53

rapidly adapt to a new environment so

22:56

that when they land on an exoplanet um

22:59

they can get out, they can rapidly

23:01

advance this environment. But then what if that

23:03

ship doesn't make it to

23:05

its destination and what if

23:07

the crew members come out and then they rapidly

23:09

adapt to the environment

23:11

of the ship. What would that look like?

23:14

So that's one of the fun ideas that this film

23:16

has. I mean, you know, don't go into

23:18

it expecting two thousand and one. But as

23:20

we've discussed in the past, if you go into any movie expecting

23:23

two thousand woman isn't two thousand and one, You're

23:25

gonna be a bit discipline so

23:27

so thank you guys for all that wonderful listener

23:29

mail. We get a lot of it. I wish we had time to

23:32

to personally respond to all of it and

23:35

or read all of it, but uh,

23:37

it's just hard and and sometimes I mean

23:40

to read something and then I print it out and then I

23:42

forget it, So some of it is useder

23:44

air on my part. Yeah.

23:46

So, uh, let us know what

23:49

you think about personhood, our

23:51

corporations, people, our plants,

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Our plants people are

23:55

our animals, people, our dolphins, people

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are artificial intelligence?

23:59

Is pol um? How about that guy

24:01

that you just shot in that video game? What

24:04

about that blade of grass that just got cut

24:06

and released? Green leaf volatiles screening

24:08

for help? Yeah, all these all these

24:10

questions on the board, so let us know what

24:13

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24:19

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24:22

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24:29

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