I believe that most people in that situation would feel compelled to grant the robots basic rights.
As noted in some of the other comments, I think this is quite debatable. I personally would lean strongly towards dissecting the robot, conditional on the fact that I have the assurance that there is no phenomenal experience going on inside the mother robot. After all, whatever I do to the baby robot, the mental state of the mother robot will not change—because it doesn’t exist!
Of course, the question of how I would gain assurance that the mother robot or child robot has no subjective experience is a different issue. If the mother robot pleaded like a human mother would, I would need an extremely strong assurance that these robots have no subjective experience and would probably lean strongly against dissecting, just in case. But (correct me if I’m wrong), this problem is assumed away in the thought experiment.
I stick by my intuition, but it is really just an intuition about how human behavior. Perhaps some people would be completely unbothered in that situation. Perhaps most would. (I actually find that itself worrisome in a different way, because it suggests that people may easily overlook AI wellbeing. Perhaps you have the right reasons for happily ignoring their anguished cries, but not everyone will.) This is an empirical question, really, and I don’t think we’ll know how people will react until it happens.
As noted in some of the other comments, I think this is quite debatable. I personally would lean strongly towards dissecting the robot, conditional on the fact that I have the assurance that there is no phenomenal experience going on inside the mother robot. After all, whatever I do to the baby robot, the mental state of the mother robot will not change—because it doesn’t exist!
Of course, the question of how I would gain assurance that the mother robot or child robot has no subjective experience is a different issue. If the mother robot pleaded like a human mother would, I would need an extremely strong assurance that these robots have no subjective experience and would probably lean strongly against dissecting, just in case. But (correct me if I’m wrong), this problem is assumed away in the thought experiment.
I stick by my intuition, but it is really just an intuition about how human behavior. Perhaps some people would be completely unbothered in that situation. Perhaps most would. (I actually find that itself worrisome in a different way, because it suggests that people may easily overlook AI wellbeing. Perhaps you have the right reasons for happily ignoring their anguished cries, but not everyone will.) This is an empirical question, really, and I don’t think we’ll know how people will react until it happens.