Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-25045079-20140829212910/@comment-24891101-20141114191100

Did you not read the latter half? Given the existence of combat robotics, the field of roboethics on Remnant must be developed. However, given the siege culture, and that wars between human nations are relatively rare, said robots would be used less frequently against human targets, and certainly infrequently by state actors, being used in practice primarily against a numerous, unreasoning, existential threat to humanity. Simultaneously, there is a wide proliferation of these to large corporations, who are less bound by international law, who use them for security. The ethical picture here would be different than on Earth. Additionally, the definite existence of AI means that the notion of robotic personhood and Turing-testing raises its head, but with a twist: given the quantifiable nature of the soul on Remnant, personhood can be more rigorously defined, especially given cultural biases against soulless things. Enter Penny, the world's first synthetic intelligence, an android with a soul, who is destined for a military application. Furthermore, she is a child, and on Earth might raise charges of endangerment; on Remnant, children routinely engage in life-or-death battles; the calculus shifts. Ethics pertaining to sythnetic personhood, military roboethics, and the ethics of minors all apply.