Should we force people into slavery or make them love it?

[Nepene]

The current comic raised an issue, where the robot protagonist has been created as a slave who enjoys being a sex slave.

In our modern society, for those sorts of jobs we simply pressure down on their luck homeless people and such to be sex slaves or pay a small number of very beautiful people lots of money.

Is the future society, where manual laborers are created to enjoy grudge labor with all of their sentience, better, or a modern society where we maybe pay people a lot of money to do such things, or pressure the down and out?

https://pictures.abebooks.com/isbn/9781862078550-uk.jpg

It reminds me of the philosophical quandry of the pig that wants to be eaten. Is it ethical to be a meat eater if the animal consents?

http://www.leftoversoup.com/archive.php?num=335

This was an ethical issue that was pushed in the previous comic.

JH: So humans giving milk is okay, cows giving milk isn't?
MH: Well, ask yourself this - if you knew someone with a brain disorder who possessed the mental capacities of a Holstein, would you consider it ethical to farm them?
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JH: Jeez, that's a nightmare scenario. How about meat, would you eat human meat, if it were freely offered?
MH: Pasteurization doesn't fix those health issues. But if you could engineer a sentient cow, one who knowingly consented to be eaten, and not just because she was programmed to do so? Absolutely.

And in there, she suggested the line to draw was that they had to not be programmed into it. Zoa is certainly programmed to be a sex slave. What do people think of programming sentient beings to be sex slaves? Do you have any suggested alternatives for a society for unpleasant tasks?

[Unanswered]

For my two cents, I'm going to go with 'programming' slaves as the right answer (if we are assuming that slaves are necessary here, which I probably wouldn't concede otherwise). However, I will add the caveat that this does not cover reprogramming someone or something that was previously free (read: had free will) into being a slave, as the reprogramming is definitely infringing on the already established personhood of the person before programming.

To be honest, I don't see a compelling parallel between this and the 'pig that wants to be eaten', necessarily - in the case of the pig, it can be argued that the pig was programmed against its own basic self will; i.e., it wants its life to end so it can be eaten. In the case of Zoa, however, being a slave is not necessarily detrimental, mainly because, if the programmers had any sense, they should have designed Zoa's AI structure with that goal in mind.

A counter-argument to this might be, "But Zoa's free will is being taken away via its predesigned programming!" Even if Zoa is sentient, I feel it a doubtful claim that a robot that has been programmed to act as what is essentially a door-to-door salesthing is an unfettered AI. As Zoa must then be fettered (if not completely constrained, so as to give the illusion of humanity to customers), can we really say that Zoa has free will to be damaged by its programming? We already established that it is programmed to perform as many sexual acts as possible, which would not interfere with its minor, unimportant actions (namely, those that would not cause it to deviate from its purpose), and if it is fettered as well, to make it want to always give blowjobs and have that be its main purpose, then other acts of will were never on the table, because they were never possible.

So if the slaves are so designed that they cannot be anything other than slaves, I don't really see a problem with it.

Hope I didn't step on any toes.

[Killjoy]

I'm going to reject the false dichotomy, and say "neither".

[bobismeisbob]

Definitely the programmed slaves over taking advantage of the destitute. I'd say though that someone who freely chooses to be a slave due to whatever reason whether it's lots of money (when they aren't desperate for that money) or they enjoy the lifestyle is better.

That said the "free will is being taken away via its predesigned programming" brings up that it's true for humans too. I don't have free will to not eat or free will to be alone (since humans are social creatures) or various other biological or sociological pressures. It's even somewhat intentionally done in some places if they have classes or castes or you accept the stance that the lack of education and mental health support is intentional too keep the populous easily manipulated.