The above scene is taken from Steven Spielberg's "Artificial Intelligence," which centers around the world's first robot boy--a miracle of technology that mirrors the Pinocchio story. In one particular part of the movie, abandoned robots are destroyed in a "Flesh Fair" that is supposed to celebrate human life by destroying robots in something similar to a monster-truck show. But when the audience sees the little robot boy, which looks and acts like any other boy, they begin protesting.
Anyway, on to the point of this post: A new new Mirror article from the United Kingdom gives us the predictions of British Telecom researchers. They say that sometime before 2020, thinking computers will be infused with organic matter, making them more like humans and animals that already have legal protections.
Personally, I am certain we will have a discussion about computer rights within the next 20 years as computers surpass human capabilities and mimic animal functions. (Anyone remember the Kasparov-Deep Blue chess match in the late 1990s?) Basically, human engineers will get better at emulating the work of the ultimate Engineer, God.
As for non-humans having rights ... even the Mosiac law afforded basic rights to animals.
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