IP: Machines have been cultivating empathy in us for a long time.

MAX: I wonder if you coud expand on this for me?

Strange but true: a lot of the first post was whimsy, meant to suggest certain things, but not to work them all out.

Shanks's post is on about the equivalence of ascribing consciousness "machines" and "non-machines." I answered that the term "consciousness" is problematic. If it is, it might pose a problem for the those who want to discuss AI as a form of consciousness. Obviously, I don't think it is one, or that it will ever become one. In fact, I don't think there is any such thing as a 'form of consciousness' for it to become

A more interesting question, then, is to consider the point at which machines might become members of an ethical community. I am suggesting that that would be the point at which we have empathy for them. This exceeds any connection with language, so I'm not going to pursue it here.

The line you're asking about is a quip: Once machines have entered into the ethical community, their empathy for us would be no less significant than ours for them. It is our empathy which will have recognized them as members of the ethical community. Once they are members of that community, their recognition of us will be no less important than ours of them.

In the line you ask about, the process is retroactive. The irony is that machines, which cannot yet be considered members of an ethical community are preparing us to admit them into it. This is farce, meant to point out the way we subordinate ourselves to machines. And to subordinate one's self is a hair's breadth from being subordinated by another. (shanks will call a category error).

Some machines that ravage are purchased under such burden of debt that they can never be shut down and operate as though with a purpose of their own. They subordinate our interests to theirs (as it were); in this way they individuate themselves this way over and against us: they demand to be recognized.

It's an old image. Wagner used it. The sentence is farce, but I think there's truth to it.