Watch: Confucian alternative beats giving robots rights [Video]

As robots assume more roles in the world, a new analysis reviewed research on robot rights, concluding that granting rights to robots is a bad idea.

Philosophers and legal scholars have explored significant aspects of the moral and legal status of robots, with some advocating for giving robots rights.

The analysis, published in Communications of the ACM, looks to Confucianism to offer an alternative.

“People are worried about the risks of granting rights to robots,” notes Tae Wan Kim, associate professor of business ethics at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, who conducted the analysis. “Granting rights is not the only way to address the moral status of robots: Envisioning robots as rites bearers—not a rights bearers—could work better.”

Various non-natural entities—such as corporations—are considered people and even assume some Constitutional rights. In addition, humans are not the only species with moral and legal status; in most developed societies, moral and legal considerations preclude researchers from gratuitously using animals for lab experiments.

Although many …