Those wild & crazy Brits...

...have really gone over the edge this time.

As the Financial Times reports in this article, it will be advisable -- on moral grounds! -- to worry about the treatment of robots.

Ro-freekin'-bots.

We humans won't want to cause them pain, or let them go into old age without pensions and care...hell, we may even want to give them a vote, according to a study commissioned by H.M. Government in London.

Of course the "scientists" who prepared the report for about future conditions were presuming that robots capable of independent thought will be developed at some point, which I suppose they will.

PARENTHETICAL BIT OF WONDERMENT: What idiot commissioned this study? And why isn't said idiot out on his or her butt for wasting the taxpayers' hard-earned cash?

But the notion of adding mechanical devices, no matter how clever, to the ranks of old-age pensioners, protected social classes and voters makes me want to suggest that we simply stop developing robots now, before it's too late.

The ramifications are simply frightening, particularly if this lunatic idea crosses the Atlantic. Picture this: clever political operatives getting involved with the programming of robots to create, say, millions of new Democrat voters. Or assembly-line robots going out on strike to protest low-cost Mexican and Chinese robots. And what, God help us, if a robot has one of its motors burn out? You won't be able to simply call a technician; hell, no, it will have the right to go on welfare!

No doubt the first thing some enterprising manufacturer will do is create an Al Sharpton robot.