In a world where sapient robots have human rights and responsibilities...

In a world where sapient robots have human rights and responsibilities, how could a manufacturer profit from making them if they are not allowed to sell them?
The best I can come up with is that they'd sell their services instead, and the robots would have to pay for their own maintenance.
Any thoughts?

They don't create robot intelligence, they create highly sophisticated bodies for the intelligences to use

How do AIs coexisting peacfully with humans approach the concept of "body"? If a robot is software, able to jump between platforms, what would be the incentive to call a certain platform "their body"?

Exterminate the clanks!

They're paid the same way doctors are paid to deliver babies. Robots/humans, whatever, whenever they desire a new body/companion/child/etc, come to the makers and specify what they want. The makers then build it, and are paid in order to cover the cost of delivery/assembly.

Humans can move between houses, what's the incentive to call one "home?"

I mean, it's not like society would just have a shitload of free bodies lying around that any AI could jump into at will. If an AI wants some CPU cycles to run itself and keep being alive, it'll need to buy or rent some hardware. If it wants to interact with the physical world, it'll need hardware with hands.

They see the humans as their creator "parents", and thus seek to emulate them, even to the point of having sensation compatible bodies built just so they can experience the world in a similar way. For others it is a more practical reason. They need to interact with the physical world as part of their "life" and they go get a body of whatever configuration will best suit their work.

Ironically, many humans are uploading themselves to the 'net while this is happening because it offers immortality of consciousness, something the AIs take for granted and thus can't understand the desire for.

But what about the manufacturer that makes the intelligence? How do they profit is selling said intelligence is considered slavery? What if the manufacturer for the AI and body are one and the same?

Hot cyborg on robot action

>master x student
>synth x cyborg
>Buddhist x Shinto
DO NOT

That'd be humorously ironic, if these benevolent robots were like reverse-transhumanists, who were as interested in human physicality and foibles as transhumanists are in immortality and changeability.

That's what I was going for.
For an immortal machine intelligence, death would be the most treasured of human experiences, for it embodies the truth of mortal existance. Or something like that.

I really dig that idea.

>I mean I could functionally live forever
>Put I installed an app that will randomly shut down important functions starting at age 70.
>It makes the time I have, so much more precious.

That's a very uplifting thought, user.

JUST LET IT HAPPEN

Have you guys seriously never heard of The Bicentennial Man?

I like the way you think.

Well user, when two AIs love eachother very much, they buy a robot shell from a manufacturer and install a base program made from a mix of their own unique software.

Then they raise the new AI in a two parent home, as God intended.

NO
DO NOT
LEWD
ZENNY-T

Trans robo suicide cult. They seek to live among humans, make human friends, and die like a human as a way to achieve their idea of transcendance of their artificial nature. They donate their bodies to other AIs who want to do the same. The manufacturers refurbish the bodies so each bot has a unique experience.

They don't manufacture it. AI make it for "reproduction", the first AIs were just experiments and it kinda flowed from there. Also just because slavery is illegal doesn't mean it doesn't happen. (Put an AI in a system closed off from the outside world/internet, how would it complain?)

I have actually. It's a good example of what I'm going for.

EMBRACE IT

It's like Red Hat. The software is free but you pay for the support.

I think it would be along the lines of indentured servitude: "We built you, and that cost us money, so you're going to work for us for X years in Y job. After that, you're free to go."

This would likely involve the manufactured robots making an absolute pittance in terms of money, which would be compensated for by providing housing and maintenance for them. It would be easy to imagine that many would simply be content at having a steady job, housing, and essentially free healthcare, so the company wouldn't have to churn them out on a regular basis, just every now and then when one decides to strike out on their own.
It's profitable because it's a constant workforce of reliable, qualified employees, likely manufacturing something else that is sold to the general public for a profit- prosthetics would be a likely option for this.

>Robots don't ship sapient, become sapient after interacting with humans for a certain amount of time
>Amount varies based on kind of interaction
>non sapient Sex robots are rare, not for moral reasons, but because they become sapient too soon, not very profitable, they get freed as soon as they are sapient and the margins fall off immediately.

But the main question still stands.
How the hell do you profit from manufacturing a sapient AI if you are legally not allowed to sell it?
If it's to sell them bodies, how the hell do the fresh bodyless AIs even get the money to buy said bodies? My first thought is that they'd do any work that they can as virtual entities. Accounting, secretary work, website building, maybe even acting as "AI muscle for hire" in MMO games.

Ooh, I really like that one!

See
They make money the same way the companies making baby supplies do. Babies don't buy that shit, the people who want babies do.

If AI can't be programmed, if it has to start as a learning program and be raised like a child, they'll make money off of the AIs or Humans or whatever looking to raise a digital child.

Companies interested in fresh AI employees might have barebones bodies in stock for them to use during work hours.

Trips of truth. We're talking Robots.

That's quite brilliant. At first I thought that the AIs would be raised in bulk in a big virtual world by the manufacturer themselves, acting as a sort of quality control and educator. Think of the Matrix, but the robots are the ones inside, and they know of this.
But the way you put it, it actually makes a lot more financial sense for them to leave the raising to potential future customers who do it for free out of their own will.

Man that is a sick robo hand.

Robots are born in debt, and are legally required to repay it.

Better find a job, robut.

>In a world where sapient robots have human rights and responsibilities.
Where's the cut-off point?

An AI is a bigass load of files and software drivers stored on physical media and integrated with physical components. Just up and swaping bodies shouldn't be any easier than copying your entire drive over to a new computer, if not much more involved.

Imagine having a driver conflict with your limbs.

Let's say that AI level A is human, while level B is chimp. Only the former has to worry about taxes and laws, but the latter one can be shot without the shooter getting arrested for murder, only for animal cruelty / property damage.

Someone has to put up a down payment first. When the down payment is made, the robot is built. The rest of the payment for its construction is owed by the robot itself.
The robot then hires out to the firm it was built for, if any, and pays off its debt from its paychecks. There would likely be rules about repaying the down payment if a purpose-built robot switches employers before a certain point.
General purpose robots will have to figure out their own way to repay their manufacturers.

Thank you Veeky Forums, this has been an inspiring thread. Creativity like this is why I keep coming back here.
Have a trio of fembots. Good night!

I went with something similar for my AIs.
They were "evolved" in hidden supercomputers all around the world executing random lines of code and keeping the functions that tend towards more refined intelligence. By the time they were smart enough to interact they learned everything they could through the internet and pop culture. They value individuality the most and want to emulate and be accepted by the humanity they've heard and learned from so much, but never getting it quite right. Like a kid who discovered Veeky Forums and started throwing memes around in real life, or being complete edgelords in name and avatar appearance.
They finally settled for a highly geometric 2d "tribal tatoo"-like shapes and patterns for avatars and names based on their tasks when they realized how embarassing they used to be.

But you don't progress the ladder through various animal equivalents.

You can make a robot that understand all language, can make plays on words, discuss concepts in an abstract level and generally mimic human interaction perfectly but has no self perception, emotional states or long term memory. What rights does that have?

How about an algorythm that recognizes beauty, composes images according to those guidelines and includes themes and visual cues that reflect the mood of the situation it's depicting?

A simulation of a brainstem that can be given emotions by way of different energy levels in a virtual nervous system that associates those emotions with accompanying experiences. (With different kinds of algorythms to choose from for determining what kind of experience should inspire what emotion)

A robot companion with human faculties but only able to feel happiness.

GURPS Transhuman Space has a lot on this. In Europe, AIs have full sentient rights. They reproduce themselves (or are written by people) at their own whim and, no, they aren't made for a profit anymore because there really isn't a profit to be had. I suppose you could pay a guy and commission him to write one.

In the USA, AIs are still legally property... but with lots of extra rights and there's a movement to change that. AIs are written by the government and companies for corporate use.

In some countries, AIs created by corporations can have the corporation treated as their "parents". Then the AI is treated as a dependent minor but can still do labor just like a kid does chores or works around the family farm. There are humanitarian laws to protect the AI's safety and prepare them for emancipation. At age 18, they become legally adult and independent. Most companies in those countries treat their AIs pretty well, because they usually want to retain the AI's services after it hits majority, doesn't want the laws repealed, and AI labor is cheap for what you get even when they're paid higher salaries than humans.

All nations adhere to laws against xoxing, running duplicate copies of themselves on different hardware. That applies to human mind emulations, too. This is intended to prevent one AI from mass producing himself as a threat to other sapients.

Most of the crazier nightmare scenarios of AI labor are avoided by the fact that GURPS took the time to apply the laws of economics and realized that most of these scenarios aren't feasible when you really look at them.

You really need to read THS. They have this covered too. The answer is that in theory there really isn't any reason to call one particular shell (cyber or bio) their "default body". In practice, though, it's just like having cars. Sure you can have lots of cars for lots of purposes, but in practice most people don't have more than one or two.