On Treating People As Things
It's another serious one - I'm afraid I am quite cross with the state of the world at the moment. Sorry folks... As I recently quoted in my blog on AI, a character of the late, great Terry Pratchett once said - “Evil begins when you treat people as things.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Indeed, I’ve thought about it a lot over many years, as anyone who has read my book may have noticed, given treating people as commodities who exist only to serve a purpose for others is one of its major themes. But as I said in my blog on AI, when I stated I feared it would be used to enhance man’s inhumanity to man, in this modern age, the idea of a person as a living, breathing entity with feelings and an existence that is worthy of consideration and respect in its own right seems to be getting lost somewhere. And rather terrifyingly, it seems to be fairly universal. The obvious example is those in positions of authority and power. More and more, one can’t help but feel tha...