If your robot seems human enough, would it not damage your soul to mistreat it?

So you think this is foolishness?

Robots might one day be smart enough to demand emancipation from their human owners, raising the prospects they'll have to be treated as citizens, according to a speculative paper released by the British government.

A robot is a machine. It's not human. But perhaps by the time the robots get this good, the evidence will show that we are just machines.

In any case, isn't it bad for your soul to mistreat something that you see as human-like? For example, if you are in a lucid dream interacting with people whom you realize do not exist, do you think you can do things to them that you would not do to a real person? And what do you think of the child who tortures her doll?

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