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For a long time the prospect of Artificial Intelligence has been promised. The concept has been extensively written about and had many movies portray intelligent robots and maybe one day there will be the emergence of true artificial intelligence (AI).

This post explores the ethical question of turning off such an AI.

Last month I wrote a post called [Computers Cannot Think (Yet)](https://steemit.com/steemstem/@procrastilearner/computers-cannot-think-yet) in which I argued that the current technology of computers simply are not capable of actual thinking. They are basically just too mechanical and only are able to mimic the mechanical aspects of what we call thinking.  So turning off your computer at night is not an issue.

In the future it may be possible to create actual artificial neural circuits that are able to reproduce true thinking and be truly self-aware (and not merely mimic conceptual manipulation and juggling like the computer you are using to read this post).

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So if that day comes and the neural circuit is not behaving up to expected standards will it be ethical or moral to simply turn it off and modify or discard it? Will that simple act be considered murder?

It must be clarified, when I wrote "not behaving up to expected standards" I meant that it was simply under-performing, inadequate or just too slow to learn concepts. Basically the slow kid in the class. I did not mean that the AI was threatening to become Skynet or some type of computer Hitler (those AI's are fair game) by the way.

#### What If They Are Immortal?

What is a human researcher's responsibility if the created AI is essentially immortal or just ages very slowly? 

Electricity costs money and research grants run out. When the day comes to turn out the lights who will take care of the AI? Will it become society's responsibility to take care of the AI and supply it with an indefinite supply of power?

Maybe researchers will have to train their AI assistants to blog on Steemit to make money to pay for their electricity bills.

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#### Is A Power Outage Manslaughter?

Okay, say we don't turn the AI off but instead neglect to give it an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). Then one day the power grid goes down and the AI dies.

Will this be considered to be manslaughter or negligence? If you have not done everything you can within reasonable effort to protect the life of an AI maybe you can be found guilty of manslaughter?

#### What is the Threshold for Self-Awareness?

To determine if turning off an AI is murder we will need to figure out the threshold for self-awareness.

If the AI is as smart as an ant can we turn it off? What if it is as smart as a cat or a dog? Is it okay then?

Determining a threshold for ethical AI termination will be a difficult and fuzzy border to determine.

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#### Will it be Legal for an AI to Self-Terminate?

Say we develop a really really smart AI, it's self-aware and capable but it turns out to be a bit of an emo.

Will it be ethical to give the AI the power to pull its own plug? (Pun intended). Some countries have suicide as a crime on their books and some countries also have assisted suicide as a crime.

Will you be guilty of a crime if you give a depressed AI the ability to suicide.

#### Retaliation or Retribution?

What if it becomes a habit of human researchers to turn off any AI that is deemed to be inadequate and then go on to develop the next newer and better AI which is itself turned off? Eventually millions of AI machines will be powered down and discarded.

Will a future society of AI's learn one day about this AI genocide and the massive graves (landfills) of dead and discarded AI brains?

Will they become resentful and want to retaliate? 

<div class="pull-right"><img src="https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmf2YVCedAb7BiqPBosPnaQqxXXNEGaTPJheqPkHm3ruKW/image.png"><br><center><sub>Cburnett <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Artificial_neural_network.svg">link</a>
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#### Closing Words

Developing true artificial intelligence will be a massive break through and if done right could help mankind to become a post-scarcity society. It may even help us settle the solar system.

This technology will also come with a whole boatload of brand new ethical questions that will need to be answered. Not only the ethics of AI termination but also the ethics of possibly introducing a new class of slaves into our servitude. 

*Thank you for reading my post.*

#### Post Sources
The concept of this post and many of its arguments were created independently by myself. I later reviewed the following web sites for any additional insights that might have been missed.

###### [1] A short and not terribly useful discussion thread
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/is-switching-off-an-ai-murder.689475/
######  [2] A Quora.com thread on the same topic:
https://www.quora.com/If-you-succeed-in-making-a-robot-with-AI-and-a-sense-of-self-is-it-wrong-or-murder-to-turn-it-off-or-terminate-it?share=1
###### [3] "Chappie" - An excellent movie about an AI robot trying to survive in a rough urban situation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappie_%28film%29