Pick your own debate!

I'm surprised at the harsh tone that Con took in that round. He accuses me of unfair tactics. Due to the nature of the accusations, I will seek to defend myself accordingly before rebutting his case. === DEFENDING MYSELF === There are three ways that Con argues my arguments to be unfair: 1) Alleged vagueness in the "mass unemployment" counter-argument. "Advocacy" = "the act or process of advocating or supporting a cause or proposal" [1] "Advocate" = "to plead in favour of" [2] I don't need to support a scenario in order to show it to be a scenario which does not cause any harms. I made this clear in the comments section when my opponent queried this, but he has still misunderstood my burden in this sense. I don't have to desire an outcome to come about, to be able to prove that there are no harms associated with that outcome. I don't need to hold that any potential outcome is better than any other; I merely need to show that the outcomes which could result are not bad. After all, Con's implication from his original argument was essentially that "robots cause mass unemployment; mass unemployment is detrimental to humanity; therefore robots are detrimental to humanity". It is thus his burden to show that such detriment actually exists. I argued in the last round that unemployment would not be bad, therefore Con (in order to win this argument) needs to show the harms that he assumed to exist in his original argument. As he has not done so (see later rebuttal) my argument stands unrefuted. 2) Accusation of "ad hominem" attacks "A debater commits the Ad Hominem Fallacy when he introduces irrelevant personal premisses about his opponent." [3] This is not what I was doing in my arguments - what I'm accused of was neither personal nor irrelevant. When I called Con's approach "pessimistic", I was clearly referring to his arguments, in saying that he was putting forward an unwarranted assumption that "humans losing control of robots = bad". There being no reasons given for this link, and there existing good reasons to reject such an assumption - which I laid out fairly extensively - the approach is unnecessarily assuming robots to be a bad influence. One legitimate way of framing this argument is to call the approach "pessimistic". Con is correct that the word itself is not a voting issue, but the argument that it illustrates certainly is one. 3) Repeated through his round is the idea that I am not allowed to "provide alternatives", or "to counter [a particular] point". But on other occasions Con implores me to "extend [his] arguments", or provides new arguments/analysis which I'm clearly expected to rebut. Which does he want me to do? The main reason he gives relating to me 'not being allowed to counter' certain points is an appeal to "fairness", as if I'm not giving him sufficient chance to rebut my case if I present new ideas. But this makes no sense: being Con in this debate, he has the last say. This gives him plenty of chance to rebut my points, whereas (after this round) I don't have the chance to respond in kind. Were unfairness to exist, it would be if he provided new arguments in the next round, when I can't respond. In fact, I find it ironic that he, when saying that fairness is a voting issue, says that: "A fair playing field is necessary to adjudicate the round in terms of which side did the better debating, and voting on theory is necessary because forcing me into a theoretical discussion hinders my ability to engage any other arguments." For what else does his accusations of abusive behaviour and unfairness on my part do, except force me to spend space rebutting them - space which I could have spent on my substantives? This is in contrary to his spending time on making the accusations in that, for the above reasons, there was no good reason to make such accusations: my conduct was manifestly not unfair. If fairness is a voting issue, then it should be a vote against my opponent, not against me. === DEFINITION OF "IS" === Con said: "Extend my two reasons for preferring the "likely to be" interpretation as my opponent has not attacked them." I clearly did, as evidenced when he quoted from where I did attack them. But even if we accept his definition of "likely to be the case", he hasn't successfully shown that it would be so, for all he has done is show that bad outcomes are theoretically possible. To say that something is "likely" is to perform some sort of calculus between outcomes, showing one to be more likely than the other. It is more than simply showing theoretical harms. Con having not done so, he has not been successful in his argumentation. === ROBOTS ARE UNPREDICTABLE === Con made a big deal about how I "dropped" the point of robot unpredictability. He seems to expect me to rebut this, even urging voters to not let me. But I don't need to rebut it, seeing as I clearly argued in my last round that robot unpredictability does not necessitate - or even make more likely - negative outcomes for humanity. I specifically gave the example of Sonny in "I, Robot" to clarify this, thus giving a path of mitigation (via morality) of theoretical harms to humanity. === GIVING ROBOTS MORALITY (EVEN IN WARFARE) === 1. Con says that morals are relative and gave two examples, which I rebut thus: a. If one programmer teaches their robot a morality of evil, then the robots would be treated as moral monsters by other, Sonny-esque, robots. They'd be no more detrimental to humanity than would a human in similar circumstances; labelling all robots as "likely to be bad" simply because of one robot isn't accurate, much like treating all teenagers as bad because of an unrepresentative few. b. The different theories given both call for compassion, just for different reasons. It'd make no difference which one was implanted. 2. Telling programmers that failing to install morality would lead to multiple harms to humanity would be enough to ensure that they do so. Con says that governments have an incentive to create war machines, but this is not mutually exclusive with giving them morals. Human soldiers are given such codes as rules of engagement and the Geneva Convention for such a situation; why should robotic machines of war be any different? === ROBOTS HATING HUMANS === Con said: "I never said the robots would hate us, they would simply view us as an inferior species.....Comparing human to human and robot to human is not relevant. Remember, robots will treat us as an inferior species, as we will be" I was saying that treating someone as inferior doesn't entail treating them badly. My opponent misses where I argue that humans DO see other humans as inferior - e.g. if they're less intelligent. But such inferiority only leads to maltreatment if the morality is not there to counteract such beliefs. This counters my opponent's analogy with our treatment of animals: it is not analogous, as robots will have been raised by humans, whereas we weren't raised by animals. If we treat robots well, they will approach superior intelligence with a pre-existing belief that humans are to be treated sympathetically. This is clearly not pre-existing with our relationship to animals. === CONSEQUENCES OF MASS UNEMPLOYMENT === Con says: "Entertainment requires money." Not so: good inter-personal relationships with other people are all that's required; one can enjoy spending time with another person without giving them money. And anyway, money is but a symbol. If humans were in an agrarian society, something else could be used as "currency". He also says: "My opponent...does not provide any alternative to capitalism." Not so: see my end of my last round for reference. Providing alternatives =\= advocacy. Sources: [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [2] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [3] http://www.fallacyfiles.org...