Interesting read on the moral responsibility and liability of our future autonomous machines and AIs…
How can you punish a bot though? It probably feels no pain or disappointment, it doesn’t mind being locked up or even switched off and destroyed. There does seem to be a strange gap if we have an entity which is capable of making complex autonomous decisions, but doesn’t really care about anything. Some might argue that in order to make truly autonomous decisions the bot must be engaged to a degree that makes the crushing of its hopes and projects a genuine punishment, but I doubt it. Even as a caring human being it seems quite easy to imagine working for an organisation on whose behalf you make complex decisions, but without ultimately caring whether things go well or not (perhaps even enjoying a certain schadenfreude in the event of disaster). How much less is a bot going to be bothered?
Full version: http://www.consciousentities.com/2016/05/bad-bots-retribution/