We're all familiar with robots.  We've all heard that they are becoming ever more able to perform a wide range of tasks.  And we've all heard various commentators wondering aloud about the social and ethical implications of robots which are able to "think" like human beings.  (Case in point:  who has seen "I, Robot," starring Will Smith?!)
     If robots come to think as we do, particularly if robots come to develop moral capacities, it may change us more than it will change them.  Most of us pride ourselves on our ability to make moral decisions, to work within ourselves and with others to come to reasonable choices about how we live.  We would be hard pressed to live rightly without doing so. Should other beings develop these capacities, what will we do?
     I would hope that we would not immediately tell ourselves that it is the robot who should adapt to us rather than both of us adapting to each other.  I would hope that we will not feel too threatened, that we would not shy from engaging them in moral issues.  I would hope that all parties would resolve to learn from each other and, in so doing, enrich the lives of all concerned.
     Just as we are creations of God, so the robots will be creations of us.  God will not always tell us what to do; he's willing to let us make our own moral decisions in our corporate lives as human beings.  Similarly, I hope that we are willing to let our creations, the robots, make their own moral decisions, to work out their lives in community with the human world.  It's terribly complicated, really, but it's worth thinking about.  As Mary Shelley pointed out nearly two hundred years ago in her novel Frankenstein, it is the creator who is ultimately the picture of the created.