There's No One Attitude Toward Robots
People aren't going to be any more consistent in the way they treat robots than they are in the way they treat people
Consider the collector at a bridge tollbooth. He’s a human being, as real as you are, his mind teeming with hopes and fears. After he clocks out, will he go home to a loving family or a lonely room-for-one? Will he look back in old age on a life worth living, or will he feel aggrieved and regretful? What is it like to be him? There are so many questions you could ask.
Do you care about any of them?
Of course not.
To you, the toll-taker is a means to an end, a thing in a skin, that stands in the way of you getting back to doing 65 in a 55-mph zone. He is there to follow a few simple algorithms. Take your money, give you change, send you on your way.
This is not a condemnation. He doesn’t care about you either. To him, you are a car. Process, and move on.
Of course, among the algorithms you both enact are some that lightly disguise the mechanical nature of your encounter. You say “hello,”…