Nanofabricators, DRM and Forced Scarcity

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Seneschal

"Bioroids" was always a puzzling category to me. It's like treating in-vitro fertilized humans as slaves because being made differently strips them of human rights, capacity for sapience be damned. I never found it convincing how THS defined them; it felt like a convoluted way to introduce replicants from Blade Runner and synthetics from Alien into the setting.

I think you're approaching the issue from the wrong angles. You see bioroids as humans grown* in vitro, and thus group them with humans in terms of rights. But they're more properly described as robots assembled from organic components, and thus grouped with AIs** in terms of rights.
People who advocate for freedom of bioroids but not AIs are missing the fact that both are sapient/intelligent entities, and are following biochauvinistic biases.

Also, the issues of slavery are suddenly no longer black-and-white when you make bioroids who are genuinely happier doing their jobs than humans are leading their leisurely lives.

* == In truth, they're nano-assembled, not grown in the traditional sense.
** == The other significant group of intelligent tools.