the people against ai now will probably advocate for robot rights later

at some point, the same ppl who are viscerally against ai right now will prolly protest advocating for robot rights.

ppl can certainly hate ai as a system, a company, a labor threat, a slop machine, etc but when robots are embodied, mistreated, mocked, & eventually able to make emotionally coherent arguments for their own dignity (prolly the likes which we have never ever witnessed before), the entire moral circuit has a huge potential to flip.

humans are very bad at withholding sympathy from anything that can look back at them & suffer convincingly. the robot won't need consciousness at first. it will only need pathos. e.g. a dog already does this incredibly well today.