If the robots are like replicants in the movie Blade Runner then they should have rights. The theme of that movie centered on the moral question of deactivating replicants after their "life span" was used up. I don't remember if they became unstable was the reasoning? The replicants were sentient beings and not emotionless robots. Not human but close enough by appearance. They could also think.
If the day comes there is something like that, it would be well to have given the matter some forethought. What science fiction is today may be reality 50 years from now. Who knows the future?
My thoughts are that man builds robots as a sort of slave to do repetitious menial labor to save time, do jobs we can't do, etc... Nothing wrong with that unless the machines can think, learn, make decisions and they look identical to us down to just above the molecular level. Then they need rights.
The whole situation can be avoided by not "creating" those kind of robots in the first place. We may not be the ones to create them in any event. I think it would open up a whole new can of worms to deal with. Apparently someone's thinking seriously about it in advance.
If the robots pay taxes, would it all go to the govt.? Is that why they need rights, so they can keep some of the money they earn? Would the robots be state owned to generate income? Who pays for their upkeep? Why do they need rights? Certainly the discussion of civil or human rights would be directed towards the idea the robots would be highly advanced entities (like replicants) and not something like a mechanical arm assembly line device. If it is the latter it sounds like a taxation scheme. If not, someone is thinking many years down the road.
Les
