National Review
We have enough problems with attaining universal human rights, but activists want animals and “nature” to have human-type rights. Transhumanists and futurists also worry about guaranteeing rights for AI technologies when they attain “consciousness.”
The latest example comes in The Conversation from a professor of game designing — who knew that was an academic discipline? — named Richard A. Bartle. He believes that “we may one day create virtual worlds with creatures as intelligent as ourselves.” From, “How to Be a God“:
I believe we will have virtual worlds containing characters as smart as we are — if not smarter — and in full possession of free will. What will our responsibilities towards these beings be? We will after all be the literal gods of the realities in which they dwell, controlling the physics of their worlds. We can do anything we like to them.
Actually, that would not be a problem because they would be neither alive nor real. No matter how sophisticated these avatars or cyber creatures, it would all be mere programming, in a fictional universe of our own conjuring. That would not make us gods, but gamers.
