Suicide Booth in Mothers Day...

[on:]

Ok so here is something nobody will care about but I'm gonna post anyway, in Mother's Day when all the robots are under Mom's control we see that one guy get his credit card or cash (forgot) get eaten by an ATM, then he tries to use the Suicide Booth but the door closes on him, meaning the Suicide Booth is a robot, so technically it's a murder booth right? If it's a robot then it's technically murdering you. 

[Reply #1 on:]

Actually, you raise a good point.  Its a matter of definitions; robot and murder.  One could argue that suicide is simply self murder.  Also, how much intelligence qualifies as sentience?  Is the booth aware that it is killing?  It may not necessarily be a robot, but a machine with some level of intelligence.  Although, even simpler machines like the coffee machine display sentience.  Besides, the booths are just providing a service for a fee, just like paying an assassin to kill yourself.  Haha, interesting train of thought though.

[Reply #2 on:]

Whether or not a robot is legally or morally responsible for its own actions probably depends on where it falls on the Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence.  Of course, just because a robot is intelligent doesn't mean that it is automatically sentient. We could argue about this all day, but at least we can agree that robots in Futurama are certainly not designed with their creators in mind. In fact, they seem to have evolved into being capable of acting the exact opposite on occasion, given the right settings.

[Reply #3 on:]

Think about this:

If you kill a clone of yourself is it murder, suicide or assissted suicide? 

[Reply #4 on:]

Murder.

Show spoiler

[Reply #5 on:]

Great job, Xanfor.  You link to tvtropes, and there goes the rest of my day.

As an engineer who also dabbles in philosophy, I both resent and find that cartoon hilarious. 

[Reply #6 on:]

Think about this:

If you kill a clone of yourself is it murder, suicide or assissted suicide? 

Now suppose that your clone goes to the roof of a 10-story building and intends to commit suicide. As your clone falls past your window (on the 5th floor), you fire a gun, which hits him/her. However, there's a safety net below there, so the suicide attempt wouldn't have succeeded.

Now ... is THAT murder, suicide, or assisted suicide?

[Reply #7 on:]

So the safety net saves him?

[Reply #8 on:]

Now suppose that your clone goes to the roof of a 10-story building and intends to commit suicide. As your clone falls past your window (on the 5th floor), you fire a gun, which hits him/her. However, there's a safety net below there, so the suicide attempt wouldn't have succeeded.

Now ... is THAT murder, suicide, or assisted suicide?

1) murder

2) suicide

3) assisted suicide

The answer depends on some unstated conditions:

If you knew that your clone was trying to commit suicide and you wanted to help, but your clone didn't know that you were going to help, it's attempted suicide and assisted suicide.

If you knew that your clone was trying to commit suicide and you wanted to help, but your clone did know that you were going to help, it's suicide and assisted suicide.

if you didn't know that your clone was trying to commit suicide, then it's attempted suicide and murder.

IMO, If you wantonly kill a sentient being, that's murder.  Good luck getting everyone to agree on the definition of sentient, though.

[Reply #9 on:]

Now suppose that your clone goes to the roof of a 10-story building and intends to commit suicide. As your clone falls past your window (on the 5th floor), you fire a gun, which hits him/her. However, there's a safety net below there, so the suicide attempt wouldn't have succeeded.

Now ... is THAT murder, suicide, or assisted suicide?

[Reply #10 on:]

Did you make that Xanfor? XD

[Reply #11 on:]

For those of you who don't know, the scenario I outlined is mentioned on the Snopes page for "Ronald Opus's Suicide":

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/opus.asp