Today the Librarian of Congress announced new rules promulgated pursuant to the Librarian’s rulemaking authority under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to exempt certain actions from the prohibition against circumvention of copyright protection systems found in 17 U.S.C. §1201. The “anti-circumvention provision” states:

No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

The Librarian is required by §1201 to make a determination every three years as to whether any exemptions from this prohibition are necessary in order to preserve access to copyrighted works. In the words of the Librarian, his task is to determine

whether the prohibition on circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works is causing or is likely to cause adverse effects on the ability of users of any particular classes of copyrighted works to make noninfringing uses of those works.

There are six new exceptions announced today:

1. Educational, documentary, and noncommercial users may now break CSS protection on DVDs in order to extract portions of motion pictures.

   This is something educators and critics have been doing for quite some time. At least, the educators at my film school did it all the time, and encouraged us as students to do so for assignments. For example, one assignment was to take a film and cut a trailer for it. I chose AI: Artificial Intelligence, which was newly released on DVD at the time, and with which I was a little obsessed, having taken part in the extraordinary, genre-defining artificial reality game promoting its theatrical release. I used DeCSS to extract the entire film, then edited together a pretty decent trailer. Did this infringe on Dreamworks’ copyright? No. Use of excerpts of copyrighted material for educational or critical use is permitted under fair use doctrine. Was it criminal at the time? Yes. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provision made it a crime to access copyrighted material for fair use purposes if that material was protected by an anti-copying technology. The DVD was protected by CSS, and the use of DeCSS to circumvent that protection was criminal, even though the underlying use of the copyrighted material was not. DeCSS’s relationship with the DMCA has been distilled into the concept of the illegal prime number: a numerical representation, in the form of a large prime, of the DeCSS method.

   This provision means that, when I finally get around to finishing my comprehensive analysis of James Cameron’s Avatar, the post will include screen grabs from the film relevant to the points I will make. Such screen grabs for use in criticism were illegal before today, despite the fact that they are not now nor have ever been a violation of any copyright.

   This rule specifically mentions only DVDs. It does not mention, and therefore does not include, circumvention of Blu-Ray copy protection schemes. Expressio unius est exclusio alterius.

2. Wireless phone users may now circumvent software protections on their phones that prevent the phone from executing software.

   This is effectively directed at Apple’s App Store for the iPhone. The new rule says only what it says, however, and what it says is that it is no longer a violation of the statute to circumvent Apple’s not-App-Store-approved software block. It does not say that doing so is no longer a breach of contract, or that Apple has to tolerate it in any way. All it says is that the government will not put someone in jail for hacking their own phone to run whatever software they want it to run.

3. Wireless phone users may now also circumvent software protections on their phones that prevent the phone from operating on a wireless network.

   Just as with number 2, the new rule merely states that it is not a crime for a wireless phone user to hack his own phone in order to let it operate with a network other than the one for which it was designed. It doesn’t say Apple has to continue to support off-network iPhones, or that T-Moble has to tolerate jailbroken iPhones on its network.

4. Users may now circumvent video game copy protection software (e.g., SecuROM) for security investigation purposes.

   I am not familiar with the real-world case to which this exemption applies. If someone knows, please share in the comments. My understanding of the provision is that it allows a computer user or computer network operator to circumvent software that prohibits game data from being accessed from outside the context of game-play, so long as the user or operator is doing so for the purpose of testing the game data for malware, and so long as the results of such investigations are maintained in a way that does not promote or facilitate improper circumvention.

   I think the non-infringing use being impaired by the anti-circumvention provision here is the use of the copyrighted game data in determining whether the game poses a threat to system or network security.

5. Users of computer software access-protected by a hardware dongle may circumvent the access-protection system when their dongle malfunctions, so long as the dongle system is obsolete and no longer supported by the manufacturer.

   If you buy some software (or a CD with music on it, or a DVD with a movie on it), you own your copy. If it interoperates with the seller’s network, the seller can dictate the terms under which that interoperation may take place, but the seller has no moral or legal right to dictate how you will use non-interoperating software (including CDs or DVDs, which don’t require ongoing communication with the publisher to continue to function). Before the Internet picked up, some software companies wanting greater control over use developed hardware dongles which, when attached to a computer system, would allow the software to operate. This allowed companies a way of enforcing the “one workstation” restrictions in their software licenses. Nowadays, this kind of functionality is done over the Internet. For example, when you install a copy of Windows 7, it has to be “activated” by contacting Microsoft’s servers over the Internet before it will fully function. Many companies that once used dongles to enforce “one workstation” licenses now use the Internet activation method, and no longer support their older dongles.

   Those companies would probably prefer that users with broken dongles be forced into buying an updated version of the software, but since these are not software products that rely on regular manufacturer interoperability, the manufacturer has no moral or legal authority to require the user to upgrade. The user is entitled by his original purchase to continue accessing the copyrighted software he purchased. If the dongle breaks and the manufacturer won’t supply him with a replacement because it is outdated, he can now circumvent the dongle and continue using his software.

   Contractually, if the license agreement anticipated a stand-alone software model, then that copy of the software is the buyer’s to use forever so long as he likes. Even if the agreement contained a provision saying “you agree not to bypass the dongle, and if your dongle ever breaks and we decide not to replace it, you will have no recourse but to upgrade,” I don’t think a court would find breach if you did bypass a broken and obsolete dongle. Morally and legally, you are still entitled to use the software you purchased. Even though I don’t think a court would find breach in such a case, I do think that you have still broken a promise in that situation. It’s just not a promise related to copyright. It’s essentially a promise to make a future purchase under certain conditions and at an undetermined price.

6. Vision-impaired eBook owners may circumvent eBook copy protection systems when those systems interfere with accessibility software.

   This one is pretty straightforward and doesn’t require any further explanation.

Now here’s what I think. I think that all of the activities now exempted from §1201 have been going on for quite some time, and that what had previously been an exercise of prosecutorial discretion has now been condensed to written rules. That is a move towards objectivity in the law, and therefore a Good Thing.

The Big Deal of the Day seems to be numbers 2 and 3 and how they apply to Apple’s iPhones, which are locked into the AT&T wireless network. But the truth is these new rules will not change anything about the jailbreaking situation. We have seen extensive, long-standing, and universal prosecutorial discretion exercised against bringing criminal charges against jailbreakers. Never once have I heard of a jailbreaker being charged under §1201, and could find no such prosecutions in my research. (If someone else has found such a prosecution, please share in the comments.) All that has changed with respect to the iPhone situation is that jailbreakers no longer need to rely on prosecutorial discretion. They now have a written rule.

Morally, a jailbreaker is still a promise-breaker. He’s not a thief, however, because he bought his phone and it is his to do with as he pleases. He can stick it in a blender [Warning: graphic content] if he so chooses, and Apple has no right to object.

Also note how 2 and 3 are different from the situation in 5. The iPhone software is not stand-alone. It interoperates. Because it has to continually communicate with Apple in order to function, Apple can, morally and legally, set the terms by which that exchange takes place. Apple can rightly refuse to interoperate with jailbroken phones. If Apple can devise a way to make its software completely shut down when a phone is jailbroken, it would be entirely within its rights to do so both under the license agreement and in terms of property rights.

Why? In the case of the iPhone, the user owns the phone, which interoperates with the producer (Apple) to provide functionality. By jailbreaking his phone, the user breaks his promise to abide by the producer’s terms of interoperability. He can keep his phone, but the producer no longer has to provide software interoperability. By jailbreaking, the promise-breaker tells the producer he no longer wants the producer’s software according to the terms of their agreement, which is just the same as saying he no longer wants the software.

§1201 is and has always been bad for property rights. Specifically, bad for the property rights of the purchasers of copyrighted works. For one, it is vague and broad. It is an attempt to criminalize activity that can have both legitimate and illegitimate purposes. The attitude behind §1201 is the same attitude that would ban bittorrent technology altogether because it can be used to violate copyright. Or that bans possession of locksmith’s tools altogether because they might be used to break into a house. Or that bans teaching of chemistry altogether because the knowledge might be used to poison someone. There are bound to be both legitimate and illegitimate uses of every kind of knowledge or technology. Banning a technology because it could be used for an improper purpose violates the rights of people who would put the technology to proper use.

§1201’s attempt to criminalize certain kinds of knowledge is a reaction to the failure of security through obscurity. Security through obscurity will always be defeated by the Streisand Effect—the more you try to suppress knowledge, the more widespread that knowledge will become. Obscurity is not a viable way to protect intellectual property anyway, because the intellectual property is itself the information that must be kept secret. If, for example, the entertainment industry wants a foolproof way of protecting their products from economically significant copying, the technology to do so has been around for decades. It is called analog, and it is still, in my opinion, the most graceful solution to piracy.

So I am not at all unhappy to see §1201 being eroded by more and bigger exceptions. I would prefer to see it disappear altogether. But the Librarian’s newest rules don’t really change anything on the jailbreaking front. They remove a minimal, hypothetical threat of prosecution for an act that, while immoral and a breach of contract, should never have been considered criminal in the first place.

When I was in Lesser Northeast Key Midwestern Swing State City Just 20 Minutes South of Greater Northeast Key Midwestern Swing State City, I had AT&T’s U-Verse product, which delivered internet and television over a copper pair. It’s almost exactly like DSL, except instead of running copper to the CO (and limiting bandwidth by distance), it runs copper to a very nearby junction box (called a Video Ready Access Device or VRAD) and fiber from the VRAD to the CO. This lets them offer much more bandwidth so they can send TV signals along with it. It was a wonderful service with competitive pricing. I never had problems with it. (I had switched to them after my earlier travails with Roadrunner through Time Warner Cable.)

I had to give up the U-Verse when I moved out. Now I’m in an older neighborhood–the house was built in the 20s–that doesn’t have U-Verse service yet, so we’re stuck with cable. And guess who the local franchisee is? Time Warner Cable. I’ve been fighting with them to improve our service ever since. Last night was particularly bad, and in frustration I tweeted:

Qwertz0

(Qwertz)

Getting really sick of 60% packet loss between 9pm and midnight. Useless internet service. Been complaining to TWC since Aug. @twcablehelp

On 12-5-2010 05:06:18 from web

TWCableHelp

(TWCableHelp)

@Qwertz0 Could you send us pings/tracerts regarding this? We’d like to see what we can do. TWCable.Help@twcable.com ^BH

On 12-5-2010 14:10:14 from TweetDeck in reply to Qwertz

Dear Time Warner Cable Peopleguys,

BH, via @TWCableHelp on Twitter, asked me to send you tracerts concerning the packet loss problem I have been having since August 2009 and haven’t been able to resolve.

My tweet last night
@TWCableHelp’s response this morning

I have attached three files. The first, [omitted] is a PingPlotter Pro dataset containing full tracert data from me to Google since 4/21/10 (excluding some small gaps when the software wasn’t running). It contains ping times for each hop, packet loss, and jitter. You can display it and explore it using PingPlotter Pro. If you don’t have PingPlotter Pro, you can download a free 30 day trial at www.pingplotter.com. I recommend this, as it will give you the best picture of what is going on here on our end of things.

The other two are screen captures from PingPlotter showing the data.

The first, [omitted], shows the current* state of the route above and the last seven days on the graph (the red humps indicate packet loss over the route). (Here, “current” means “average of the route data from 10:37:57am to 10:40:12am EDT this morning,” which is when I took the screenshot.)

The second, [omitted] is another screenshot, this time showing data from last night (10:12:57pm EDT). As you can see, utterly unacceptable levels of packet loss.

Here are the symptoms:

In the evenings, we experience problems with our internet service AND our television service. On the TV side of things, HD channels will block up, audio will drop out, and the screen will go blank. (Since the guide upgrade a few months ago these have happened more frequently, and the blank screens have been replaced with a “please wait” message.) This happens unpredictably and usually on higher-numbered HD channels only. Usually there are no problems with non-HD channels or local HD channels. The guide is extremely sluggish in the evening, and changing channels can take up to 45 seconds in some cases. On the internet side of things, the internet is useless between about 9pm and midnight for anything other than loading simple web pages (very, very slowly). We cannot do anything more intensive than that. Downloading email is a chore. Videos on YouTube, Hulu, &c, will not load. Most distressing, I get disconnected from World of Warcraft, which I am usually only able to play in the evenings due to work, and then cannot play for long due to the high packet loss. (World of Warcraft is not a high-bandwidth application. It relies on data being reliably and quickly delivered between server and client, not on cramming large amounts of data down the pipe at once. Latency, as you can see from the dataset, is relatively low, though it does spike during peak hours along with the packet loss. The unreliability of packet delivery to the game server is what causes disconnects resulting in nonplayability. We require better reliability of packet delivery, not more bandwidth or lower latency.) Speed tests (run at Speedtest.net) typically indicate much slower speeds during the late evening hours.

Here is what we have tried to do about it:

The problems started up last August (August 2009). We had a technician out who replaced the drop from the pole to the house. That mitigated, but did not resolve, the problems. They were manageable until the beginning of 2010, when they became much worse. In the past few months we have had technicians out on at least 5 separate occasions. They have verified that there is no problem inside our house, or with the drop from the house to the pole. (I have stopped dealing with the national support desk because they are completely unhelpful. I have been dealing directly with the local maintenance office for the past month. I will not call national support desk ever again unless it is to close the account. I can only tolerate being told to power-cycle my modem so many times.) On the last tech visit (which came with two technicians, instead of the usual one), we were told that the problem is area-wide and caused by saturation of our node’s bandwidth, probably caused by all the college kids halfway across town, who are, inexplicably, on the same node. They looked at the graphs and could see the node bandwidth capping out at night. They said they would look into moving us to another node, or making a hardware upgrade somewhere, but I haven’t heard anything from them since, and my calls are now going unreturned.

Here is what we want, thought we were paying for, and have discovered we are not getting:

Reliable delivery of packets at all hours. Watchable prime time HD programming.

I expect you will need our account information to look up our service history and see what can be done. I won’t give that out in an email, so you will need to phone me. My cell phone number is [omitted] (the account is not associated with that number). You can call me any time. If by chance I do not pick up, leave a message and I will call you back within an hour. I will expect your call within 24 hours. Before you call, please make sure you have actually read this email and looked at the attachments — I do not enjoy retelling the story to every single person I speak with about this issue. And I do not enjoy being asked to power-cycle my modem or router or restart my computer. The problem is coming from outside the house.

Yours,

Qwertz
Greater Northeast Key Midwestern Swing State City

I got a call back in just a few hours. Let’s see what happens.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is available online here [PDF].

You can upload your comments using ECFS here, using proceeding number 09–191. You can read others’ comments on ECFS here.

I’m writing comments to submit right now. I’ll post my comments here when I finish. I encourage everyone who loves the Internet and doesn’t want to see it become the Postal Service of the 21st Century to do the same.

I agree that only things with rights can enter contracts. Marriage, being a constellation of legal relationships akin to a contract, is only properly available to things with rights. One could not marry one’s toaster. One’s toaster is not a conditional, volitional consciousness. Its existence is not an end in itself, it does not require sustained action to gain and achieve values in order to continue to exist, it is not required to make value judgments. It has no ethics, so rights are simply inapplicable to toasters.

There are two questions, then: What is a robot?, and Is it the sort of thing that can have rights? The first is a question of technology, the second, of philosophy.

I. Technology

Modern robots are purpose-built, computer-controlled machines. They are made of mechanical components. Filbbert says:

We’re venturing now into the realm of science fiction, so I should predicate my comments by saying that I’m talking about purely mechanical beings and not biomechanical or cybernetic beings.

Using the word “beings” begs the question a little, but I think we all understand what he means. (I will use things instead.) Flibbert seems to suggest that a lack of biology is an essential component of the relevant definition of “robot.” I disagree.

We are on the brink of major technological changes. We have already begun to blur the line between mechanics and biology. Biotechnology allows us to create “biological machines” to produce, for example, insulin. We are already building living organisms from scratch. It is only a matter of time before we develop the technology to build complex, multi-cellular things that carry on the same sort of tasks that modern robots do.

Ultimately, all biological things, including humans, are just very complicated, chemical machines. (I’m not suggesting that we’re just flabby sacks of chemicals with delusions of grandeur. The complex chemical machine that is the human being is arranged such that it gives rise to a rational, volitional consciousness. How it does this is for science to discover. That it does this is the philosopher’s only concern, and is pretty well self-evident, to boot.)

Likewise with biology, we’re beginning to investigate nanotechnology, which will blur the biological/mechanical distinction to the point of irrelevance. We will have nanobots building orgobots building mechabots. But ultimately, what the thing is made from is less important than what it can do.

Bot technology is currently driven in large part by reverse-engineering the human mind. There’s nothing mystical about the human mind; it works somehow, and how it works is within our power to discover. We already have robots capable of sensation. As neuroscientists learn more about the structures of perception, bot builders will incorporate electromechanical, and eventually biological and nanotechnological functional equivalents of these structures into their creations. We are not very far off from a conscious robot — one that can perceive existence. (Consciousness is the faculty of perceiving existence. A robot capable of perception would be rightly called “conscious.” Perception is an automatic process of integrating separate sensations into units. Current machines are able to simulate perception in limited contexts, but we wouldn’t call them conscious until they are able to emulate perception in any context.) Once we learn how our own brains perform these integrations, there’s nothing saying we couldn’t build a machine capable of emulating the process.

Our ability to study the brain is expanding. Every day we learn more about it. Scanning technology continues to improve the resolution with which we can examine the brain. Likewise, by the end of this decade, we will have developed electromechanical computers with the capacity to simulate the human brain. Within twenty years, computers will be able to faithfully emulate the brain. These numbers are based on Ray Kurzweil’s hypothesis about the effect of his Law of Accelerating Returns on technology. For more information, see Ray Kurzweil, The Singularity Is Near 35–203 (2005). Kurzweil does not account for the effects of philosophy on human events, however. So his predictions will be off if our current philosophical crisis is resolved poorly. Whether we will know how the brain works by then (especially the question of how the brain perceives) will determine whether we are technologically able to create a conscious robot. Eventually, we will be able to build an electromechanical (or biochemical, or nanotechnological, or some hybrid thereof) analogue to the human brain that will be capable of consciousness. Once we can do that, I think it will be a much easier step to go from perceptual consciousness to conceptual. Truly thinking machines are technologically possible, and will be here sooner than we might expect.

Ayn Rand speaks in terms of “organisms” in The Objectivist Ethics, in The Virtue of Selfishness 13, 16 (1961). I do not believe that this is essential to her argument. If “organism” means “something that is alive,” then her argument does not necessitate biochemistry as a basis for that life. She appears to be presupposing and describing a living entity, not defining life. I think it is entirely technologically feasible for Man to create a thing that is able to acquire “the material or fuel which it needs from the outside, ... [and to] us[e] that fuel properly.” We can create new organisms in a lab, after all. I don’t see how the particular method (biochemical versus some other method) makes any difference.

Merely being capable of conception, however, is not sufficient for rights. A consciousness with automatic conception would have no need of rights. Which leads us to:

II. Philosophy

There are some requirements which must be met in order for a thing to have rights. The thing must have these:

• Life
• Consciousness
• Volition

See Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 1012 (1957), reprinted in Ayn Rand, This is John Galt Speaking, in For the New Intellectual 117, 121 (1961) (arguing that “[M]an,” who has rights, “is a being of volitional consciousness”). I am of the thought that a robot (be it electromechanical, biochemical, or nanotechological) capable of faithfully emulating the human mind would necessarily be possessed of consciousness and volition. (I do not discuss consciousness or volition in this post.) If it weren’t, it wouldn’t be a faithful emulation. As discussed above, I see nothing about the human mind that is beyond the power of the human mind to learn and understand, and nothing standing in the way of developing a technology capable of emulating it.

But would such a robot be alive? This seems to be Flibbert’s primary objection.

[Sufficiently advanced robots] may share a rational faculty, but they do not have biological needs, specifically, they cannot die.

You can turn a robot off and turn it back on at any time. Even if it somehow could not be turned off and back on, it would be possible to recreate a robot’s “consciousness” if it were damaged. In effect, robots cannot die and as a result, it has no need for a right to life, liberty, or property.

But that suggests that death is a necessary part of life. I do not think that Objectivism necessarily takes this view of life.

Life is a kind of existence that is conditioned on self-generated, self-sustaining action. See Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 1012–13 (1957), reprinted in Ayn Rand, This is John Galt Speaking, in For the New Intellectual 117, 121 (1961). Modern robots are capable of self-generated action within the limits of their design. Because we have only so far achieved sensate robots, modern robots are only capable of self-generated sensory response. Many modern robots merely regurgitate preprogrammed responses to sensory stimuli. These are not self-generated actions. They are generated by the programmer. They only simulate self-generated action. But some robots, even very simple ones, can be said to be sensate. For example, this robot’s self-balancing behavior is arguably a self-generated sensory response. It is at least no less sensate than a flower turning towards the sun. (But it is not alive, because this action, though self-generated, is not self-sustaining.) If we accept that one day robots will be capable of forming and dealing with concepts, then it is reasonable to accept that they will be capable of self-generated conceptual action as well.

But merely self-generated action, even self-generated conceptual action, would not make such a robot alive. The self-generated action must also be self-sustaining. It is interesting to note that we are also currently capable of constructing apparently self-sustaining robots. Apparently, because their self-sustaining actions are not actually self-generated, but pre-programmed. The Roomba vacuum cleaner, for example, has a pre-programmed response to low batteries: It parks itself in its charger to refuel. Again, not alive, because the action is not self-generated.

If we were to create a robot that could build a copy of itself out of raw materials (as opposed to mere assembly from prefabricated parts; “raw” here means “metaphysically given”), I think it would be unquestionably alive. Unicellular critters are basically robots that build copies of themselves from raw materials. We can engineer custom-built unicellular critters (see above). Is this really any different from building a self-replicating biochemical robot? If not, then is that any different from building a self-replicating mechanical robot? Or a self-replicating nanobot? Or some hybrid? As I discussed above, I still think not.

The key to truly self-sustaining action is conditionality.

I propose that conditionality is to be construed broadly. If a thing will cease to exist in the absence of some volitional action, then its existence is conditional in the sense essential to life (and by extension, rights). I think many modern robots meet this definition of conditionality, but are nonetheless not alive because their existence is not conditioned on self-generated, self-sustaining action. It is conditioned on external actions. A modern robot will run only so long as there is a person to care for it. A modern robot must be kept in existence by something else acting upon it.

A modern robot is always conditional. It requires action to keep it in existence. Which is to say, it requires action in order to keep it being a robot, instead of a pile of immotive, insensate junk. But modern robots are not alive, because this action must come from without. Specifically, the sustaining action comes from an act of will by the creator, Man.

(This introduces a problem I will discuss in more detail further down the post: the problem of artifacts. A robot is an artifact, because it is purpose-built by Man. See below.)

A robot is therefore conditional in two ways: conditional in its creation, and conditional in its continued operation. Currently, both are entirely dependent on external actions by Man. Clearly such things are not alive, and have no rights. But as I have attempted to show, the creation of a truly self-sustaining robot is possible. Such a thing would be alive. At least, until it died.

Flibbert suggests that a robot must be able to die in order to have rights. Death is the loss of a living organism’s ability to take self-generated, self-sustaining action. It is the result of a failure to meet the conditions of existence. Man stops eating, Man dies. He has failed to meet a condition of his existence. Man ceases to be, and the now inanimate material of which he was composed becomes Corpse. Corpse is not alive and has no rights. A robot’s existence is conditional. If it runs out of fuel (stops eating), it will be unable to move, and unable to sustain its own existence.

Death is one of the disadvantages of biochemical entities. The major advantage is that biochemical processes are relatively simple compared to mechanical analogues. Biological evolution is a very simple process for enabling incremental change in the absence of an integrating consciousness. It is very slow. A shorter individual lifespan helps evolution to occur a little more rapidly. We see this in short-lived species that can be observed over many generations in a laboratory.

Technological evolution, which has already surpassed biological evolution in the ways it has affected human life, is a much faster process, but is vastly more complex. For instance, it depends on cognitive processes. But if it is possible to build a cognitive mind out of parts that are not subject to the limitations of biochemical processes, then technological evolution could occur in the absence of any biochemical processes. The question is: would it?

If an entity cannot die, then it can have no ethics. Its existence is no longer conditional, so life is of no value to it. Ayn Rand presented this problem with the concept of an immortal, indestructible robot. See Ayn Rand, The Objectivist Ethics, in The Virtue of Selfishness 13, 16–17 (1961). Such a robot, she says, would have no ethics because its life would be unconditional. I believe that this is an ethical illustration, and should not be read to have metaphysical considerations. Only matter is absolutely indestructible, and everything, including men, is made of matter. So to suggest an indestructible robot is to suggest some peculiar immutable form of matter; such form giving rise to conceptual consciousness. I think this is a metaphysical inconsistency, so it appears Ayn Rand offered the example merely as an illustration that conditionality is a precondition of ethics. An immortal robot would not, strictly speaking, be immortal. Its form, which gives it the power of self-generated, goal-oriented action, could change and render the robot incapable of action. It could rust. Or it could be smashed. [Query: Is this similar to Aristotelian Hylomorphism?]

A thinking machine could be destroyed by outside forces. That doesn’t make it alive, of course. What makes a thing alive is hinging its continued ability to think upon necessary, self-generated action. As I have already discussed, I do not think that power necessitates the incorporation of biochemical processes.

Also, immortality is to be distinguished from an indefinite lifespan. An immortal thing is not alive. But a definite lifespan (which is to say, a lifespan that will definitely not exceed a given span of time) does not appear necessary to ethics. As long as an entity can keep up the sustained action required to maintain its existence, it will be alive and possessed of rights. That such an entity is not subject to the peculiar limitations of biology does not seem particularly relevant.

All of technology (that is, the application of scientific knowledge to the task of living) has been an effort to stave off the limitations of biology. Technology also reduces the amount of individual effort required to stay alive. Dramatically. Compare the individual effort required to stay alive in Western Civilization today with the individual effort required to stay alive in 14th Century Europe; the difference is technology and the philosophy that allows it. As we move towards a more technologically-driven existence, the effects of the limitations of biology will continue to dwindle. Because we will eventually develop the technology to faithfully recreate the human mind in non-biological form, it follows that humans could eventually overcome completely the limits of biology, in favor of the much less ephemeral existence afforded to non-biological entities.

I find nothing philosophically offensive in the idea of an indefinite human lifespan. I think Objectivism holds up, even under the circumstances of non-inevitable death. Death would still be possible to humans with indefinite lifespans, and would be certain if the effort required to maintain life was withdrawn. Just because we might technologically be capable of reducing that effort to a theoretical minimum does not change the ethical calculus requiring life as the ultimate value.

By defining “life” in terms of what the thing does, rather than by the physical means by which it does it, Ayn Rand created an ethics that will not fail when man evolves from a biological entity into a technological one. When we create living “robots” in the image of our own consciousness, the Objectivist ethics will apply equally to them, despite being possessed of indefinite lifespans.

III. Concluding Notes

A. The Problem of Artifacts

If we accept that science and industry will provide the technology to faithfully emulate human consciousness, the only philosophical difference between such a piece of technology and a human being would be that the former is an artifact, while the latter is not. An artifact is an object created by Man for a particular purpose. An artifact requires an act of integration to create. Without that act of integration, the artifact would not exist. Man, however, required no act of integration to come into existence. He was not “intelligently designed.” A robot would be.

Objectivism instructs that life is an end in itself. But artifacts are the means to an end. Is it possible to create a living artifact? If one were to genetically engineer a docile, unintelligent but conceptual race of creatures, specifically for the purpose of performing menial labor, would they have rights? Are their lives ends in themselves? Which status (living or artifact) is more important? I don’t think Ayn Rand expressly answered the question (because it never arose), but I think it is easy to conclude that being alive trumps being an artifact. The fact that life is an end in itself comes from the necessity for self-sustaining action, not from the absence of any other “greater purpose.” [Query: Isn’t this the fundamental difference between Objectivism and secular Humanism?]

B. Disturbing Potentials

i. Mind Control

If we develop the technology to understand and faithfully emulate the human mind, won’t that also give us the technology to manipulate the mind on its most fundamental level? I don’t think that’s a valid argument against the technology, but clearly individual rights will remain of paramount importance in the future.

ii. Resurrection

The question of indefinite lifespan of a conscious being raises the issue of continuity of that consciousness across gaps in the ability to undertake self-generated, self-sustaining action. A person dies when his brain ceases to function, even for a moment. No person has ever been revived from brain death. If it became technologically possible to restart a stopped brain (a possibility more relevant to a non-biological brain), would the consciousness be the same? I think so, because consciousness is a function of matter and form, not of anything mystical. The disturbing potential here is that resurrection would not be a self-generated action. It would the operation of external forces to maintain, or more accurately, to reinstate, life. I think even a resurrected consciousness would still qualify as alive, because its continued existence would still be dependent on self-generated action, but would the possibility of resurrection affect the ethical calculus by reducing the importance of life as a value? Even more disturbing, would the possibility of resurrection, presumably by another person, make the human race a collective one, where existence of the individual depends strictly on the actions of others? This is not an avenue I intend to address with this post.

iii. Intelligent Design

Living, technological entities would necessarily be intelligently designed, at least in part. We are, to some extent, intelligently designed already, to the extent that we have modified our existence through technological means. We are not the same creatures we would be if it weren’t for technology. Fundamentally, however, the biological consciousness from which we build our future selves, and which we will emulate with technology, was not intelligently designed. It was the product of biological evolution. When we shift from biological evolution to technological evolution, we will not abandon the products of biological evolution. Biological evolution will in fact continue. We will just be evolving faster under our own power. Though we might improve on it drastically in the future, the nucleus of consciousness will always be in emulation of the biological origins of our future technological selves.

C. Final Words

In summary, I think Objectivism would extend rights to robots who met the definition of life and were possessed of volitional consciousness. I do not think the indefinite lifespan of such a creation would affect the conditionality of its life. While my toaster clearly does not meet the requirements, I do think that it is entirely within the ability of Man to create such a being, and that even while such creatures might be viewed as different from Man, they will nonetheless be possessed of the same individual rights. But as we develop the technology, we will change ourselves to be more like our creations. Whether there is ever a distinction between “us” and “them” seems to me irrelevant, because eventually, we will become them, and they us.