You could have deliberately made a spelling error to trick me into thinking you were human. Still, I'd like to think that hubski is perhaps 99.9% human. -

There's still the philosophical zombie issue. And the identical robot thing (which obviously isn't here yet). But yes, you can be safe in assuming 99.9% of hubski (and even reddit) is a biological organism that we call humans.

that's one reason why I love meetups or reports of meetups. I've seen some faces.

See 'Time of Eve'. Granted, that's not here yet. So meeting in person is a safe way (for now) to determine whether someone is a biological organism.

I've received postcards written in ink by what seems to be hands (although I can't be sure).

You can make handwriting fonts and print them. No guarantees post cards are written by hand. IIRC there's also handwriting services (like in the movie 'Her').

Even conversations on IRC seem to be generated by humans.

Correct. "Chat bots" aren't quite there yet either. Though some (like cleverbot) have passed preliminary turing tests.

Kyon and the Talking Cat is a great clip and I totally agree with the cat. What I am saying (or writing) might well be understood in a different way by the other. It might even be heard as gibberish.

That's why I linked it. It's sort of the same idea. Even other humans can write something which is completely different than how you understand it. So at what point is a 'connection' really made?

I leave that to future generations - although the piece I posted recently about head transplants moves in that direction.

It's rapidly becoming a current problem. I'd say at least within 100 years. The singularity is predicted to happen within current young adults' lifespans. But I bring it up because it's an increasingly problematic thing. Vegans/Vegetarians continually bring it up as a moral basis for their dietary preferences. If animals are treated with the same conscious respect as humans, why not machines?

Re transhumans: If a robot is conscious of inequality and expresses that awareness, I would certainly pause. If a robot is programmed to get revenge when it is treated badly, our engineers might have some 'splaining to do.

The unfortunate fact is that early consciousness can't be aware of inequality. Certainly at some level that is obtained though. And as for it being 'intentionally programmed', that may very well not be the case. When it comes to computer vision, we don't actually program how to recognize things. The computer 'learns' that on it's own. Once the code is sufficiently advanced, certainly the computer could learn to recognize inequality?

To give a more retro example, there's a game called 'creatures', in which you take care of a virtual creature. This creature is unlike many you are familiar with. it has a dietary track, in-depth health meters, and a brain that is composed of many parts, like a human. It has a visual part, where it can learn to recognize objects. A speech part, in which it learns to identify and be able to speak and respond to speech (through text input/display on the screen). It can learn routines, and how to fend for itself (though at the beginning you must teach it what's good/bad). And it can feel pain/pleasure. Hell, it can even fall to skinner boxes. These creatures can mate and have offspring. Much like a real creature. This creature can feel regret and have "guilty pleasures", in which it likes something and will do it, even if punished.

Is this creature worth respect? Is it worth teaching things? Certainly it's rudimentary (as it's a commercially available old piece of software). But if something that old can be that complex, what's stopping it from happening in the future?

Along the same lines, transhumans are literally just a human mind uploaded into a machine. Are these people no longer deserving of respect simply because they chose a different lifestyle? How do you distinguish between a transhuman and a full robot?

As I said, go watch 'Time of Eve'. it really nails down these points and is one of my favorite movies/shows.