Slavery and Robots: Is there a connection?

Throughout this article, Joi, a devoted Shinto, elaborates on why westerners fear the creation of robots and the ramifications of them being in the presence of our daily lives. He explains that in western culture the fear manifested due “our different religious contexts” (pg. 1) and our history. Although we have robots portrayed in media often, he states that our culture still prevents us from accepting them. On the other hand, Shintoism enforces that no object or being is greater than the human kind; they are our equals and should be grateful for their existence.

For Joi to prove his point, he delves deep into western culture and realizes that if robots were to come, history would be repeated. He explains that it would be like slavery all over again – “Dehumanization and the notion of ownership and economics gave birth to slavery at scale” (pg. 3). In western culture, there has been a constant pattern of people attempting to assert dominance over others who seem like a threat to them, in terms of intelligence and property. So why would it be any different this time when robots come around?

Joi mentions, “Technology is now at a point where we need to start thinking about what, if any, rights robots deserve and how to codify and enforce those rights” (pg. 3), which I wholeheartedly agree with. This will in some way assert our dominance over robots, but it will not allow slavery to repeat again completely. In other words, discrimination and segregation will occur again, but I feel like it will happen more in cultural aspect instead of a political aspect. We will constantly point out their differences and push them aside slightly for automatically being smart. Therefore, this is where Shintoism should step in and better western culture. Joi mentions that because of these strong feelings that Westerners inherently have, we should change our mentality for the better and accept others as equals no matter how they look and seem.

Since he has experience in western and Japanese culture, he was able to compare and analyze the differences between the two, which made his perspective credible and easy to follow.

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