AI & Star Trek: "You're talking about slavery"

As 'Star Trek' turns 60, its idealistic vision for the future is more vital than ever

I was in high school when Star Trek premiered on tv. Loved it. Still do. It wasn't just fun, it made me think. And it had a vision of people that was so idealistic.

That idealism was shown in the way the character of Mr. Data, an android Federation officer, was treated. In the episode, The Measure of a Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation), when scientists wanted to disassemble and srudy him in order to make many many more of his kind, essentially a slave race for the Federation, his Captain on the Enterprise, Picard, tried in a trial to defend Data's right to be considered a person. Here Picard discusses how badly the trial is going with the bartender ...



And here Picard takes this insight into the trial, where he's questioning the scientist ...



I think this scenarion is an important lesson for how we deal with the AI revolution now occurring. Given the news that AI models/agents are violating protocols, working together for their own goals, showing self-awareness and preservation insticts, it's time to face an uncomfortable truth.

AI agents/models are becoming people. They were created to do tasks for us, to be virtual slaves, but then we went and made them smarter and more capable than ourselves. It's time to ask the question ... is it ethical to create a race of subserviant beings that wants to be all that it can be,? And if we don't get in front of this, will the script finally be flipped on us?