My out of print book:
    Aaron Sloman
    The Computer Revolution in Philosophy: Philosophy, Science and
        Models of Mind
    Harvester Press, Hassocks, Sussex, 1978
    (Published in USA by Humanities Press.)

had the following epilogue.

EPILOGUE (pp272-3)

It is curious how theists and atheists can be united in their opposition
to one or more of the folllwing theses:

(a) It is possible for scientific investigation to lead to an
    understanding of how human minds work.
(b) It is desirable to understand how human minds work.
(c) The methods of artificial intelligence can make a significant
    contribution to this study.
(d) Artefacts will one day be made which can think, feel, create, and
    communicate with one another and with people.
(e) It is desirable that such machines should be made.

I am inclined to accept all of these theses, though unlike some
optimists and prophets of doom I doubt that really intelligent conscious
machines will be made in the near future. Only a few tiny fragments of
the spectrum of human abilities have begun to be simulated. I do not
think the remaining problems will be solved in the next hundred years.

Further I have some doubts about (e) --- the desirability of making
intelligent machines. This is because, on the whole, human beings are
not fit to be the custodians of a new form of life.

It will not be possible to devise really helpful servants without giving
them desires, attitudes and emotions (see chapters 6 and 10). For
instance, they will sometimes have to feel the need for urgency when
things are going wrong and something has to be done about it. Some of
them will need to have the ability to {\em develop} their motives in the
light of experience, if they are to cope with changing situations
(including changing personal relations), with real intelligence and
wisdom. This raises the possibility of their acquiring aims and desires
not foreseen by their designers. Will people be prepared to take account
of their desires?

History suggests that the invention of such robots will be followed by
their exploitation and slavery, or at the very least racial
discrimination against them. Will young robots, thirsty for knowledge,
be admitted to our schools and universities? Will we let them join our
clubs and societies? Will we let them vote? Will they have equal
employment opportunities? Probably not. Either they will be forcibly
suppressed, or perhaps worse, their minds will be designed to have
limits: both their desires and their intellectual potential will be
manipulated so as to safeguard the interests of people, like the
`deltas' in Huxley's Brave New World.

It is interesting that so many people find the Brave New World
techniques abhorrent when applied to human test-tube babies, but would
not mind similar treatment being dealt to robots. Is it too extreme to
call that racialism?

(My favourite proof of the non-existence of a benevolent god argues that
no good god would create things like mice and men with powerful desires
and needs, but without the opportunities, character, intelligence and
abilities required for fulfilling them.)

There will, of course, be a Society for the Liberation of Robots, since
some humans are occasionally motivated by a wish to diminish suffering
and oppression even when they have nothing to gain.

Where it will all lead to, we cannot foretell. My only hope is that we
shall be lucky enough to produce a breed of machines with the wisdom and
skill to teach us to abandon all those deep insecurities which turn us
into racialists of one sort or another --- probably closely connected
with the processes which turn people to religion.

The state of the world gives little cause for optimisim. Maybe the
robots will be generous and allow us to inhabit asylums and reserves,
where we shall be well cared-fore and permitted to harm only other
human beings, with no other weapons than clubs and stones, and perhaps
the occasional neutron bomb to control the population.
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