Treat 'em like animals.
PIGS, RATS, AND locusts have it easy these days—they can bother whoever they want.
But back in the Middle Ages, such behavior could have landed them in court. If a pig bit a child, town officials would
hold a trial like they would for a person, even providing the offender with a lawyer. Getting insects to show up in court en masse was a bit more difficult, but the authorities tried anyway: They’d send someone out to yell the summons into the countryside.
That’s hilarious, yes, but also a hint at how humans might navigate a new, even more complicated relationship. Just as we can’t help but ascribe agency to animals, we also project intent, emotions, and expectations onto robots. “It has always struck me that we're constantly comparing robots to humans, and artificial intelligence to human intelligence, and I've just never found that to be the best analogy,” says MIT robotics ethicist Kate Darling, author of the upcoming book
The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future With Robots. “I've always found that animals are such a great analogy to get people away from this human comparison. We understand that animals are also these autonomous beings that can sense, think, make decisions, learn. You see a more diverse range of skill and intelligence in the animal world.” ...
https://www.wired.com/story/want-to-get-along-with-robots-pretend-theyre-animals/