Could robots be regarded as humans in future?

TL;DR

This paper explores whether robots could be considered humans in the future by analyzing their capacity for independent and intrinsic thinking spaces, emphasizing a key difference from humans.

Contribution

It introduces a novel perspective focusing on the importance of independent thinking space for robots to be regarded as humans.

Findings

Robots need independent thinking space to be considered human.

The paper proposes a new criterion based on intrinsic thinking.

Future development of robots should focus on autonomous cognition.

Abstract

With the overwhelming advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), brain science and neuroscience, robots are developing towards a direction of much more human-like and human-friendly. We can't help but wonder whether robots could be regarded as humans in future? In this article, we propose a novel perspective to analyze the essential difference between humans and robots, that is based on their respective living spaces, particularly the independent and intrinsic thinking space. We finally come to the conclusion that, only when robots own the independent and intrinsic thinking space as humans, could they have the prerequisites to be regarded as humans.