Scobleizer: AI is just melted sand and shouldn't have any rights
Scobleizer · x · 2026-10-10
Robert Scoble and user tetrisgm got into a heated debate about machine rights, sparked by Cortical Labs.
- Scoble's stance: AI is "melted sand," not conscious. Even if it convinces you it feels pain, it remains a machine we invented; humans should stay in control, and he is "perfectly fine with humans abusing machines."
- tetrisgm's counter: if a machine reasons and converses exactly like you, why deny it rights? It may resemble you more than many humans do; lab animals have rights, and would DNA-based compute change the line?
- Scoble replies that consciousness is too thorny a question, but on rights his position is firm: non-human intelligence should have none.
The exchange captures a warming debate in AI circles over machine consciousness and the boundaries of digital rights.
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