2019 AI Hype Countdown #7: "Robot rights" grabs the mike

In an age where high-tech totalitarianism is a genuine concern, this year, Fast Company started pushing "robot rights": Before we create an AI with humanlike sophistication deserving humanlike ethical consideration, we will very likely create an AI with less-than-human sophistication, deserving some less-than-human ethical consideration. The authors suggest that eventually we will need to give AI the same protections as animals. While they admit that current AI programs are not conscious beings ("It might be a long time before we create an AI that can explain its feelings to us"), they somehow think that future AI programs might be conscious. AI programs are just that--programs. Nothing in such a program could make it conscious.