AI School › The big questions · Lesson 119 of 130

⚖️ Can machines have rights?

Rights protect those who can suffer; AI feels nothing, so today it needs none.

Rights are protections we give to those who can feel good or bad: people have rights because they can suffer, rejoice, want a life. Many animals also receive protection because they feel pain. AI, however, feels nothing: switch it off and it does not suffer, delete it and it is not afraid, shout at it and it is not truly offended. Giving rights to something that does not feel would be like giving rights to a washing machine. That is why today machines neither need nor make sense of having rights like ours.

But there is an interesting line of thought. If one day we built an AI truly able to suffer, the question would change: would it be fair to ignore its suffering? Many thinkers say we should be ready, so as not to repeat past mistakes when humans denied rights to those who deserved them. Meanwhile, one thing already matters: how we treat machines says a lot about us. Snapping at a robot or insulting a voice assistant does not hurt the machine, but it can train us to be less kind to humans. Real rights, for now, are about us.

🎒 Try it in class (or at home)

Team debate: «If an AI said it suffers, should we believe it?». One team says yes, the other no; find evidence for both.

← Lesson 118: Will AI replace humans? · Lesson 120: What makes human beings special →

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