Human rights and the start and end points of humanity

I have a project where I am looking at the question “when did human rights begin?”, given that humans have not always existed. It's a project that will have to wait until I retire (if I can one day actually get to retire), but, to cheat a little, I suspect that what it is going to reveal is: 

• the rights described as “human”, just as the rights that are described as “animal”, have always existed; 
• the problem is that we have often lacked the awareness that such is so, and have then struggled to develop the means to communicate that reality in an effective manner.
  

What people tend to think of as the starting point of human rights is often connected to when those were enshrined into human laws. 

That is done ostensibly to cover off on people who “could not reasonably have been expected to comply with human rights” until they had been taught the obligations exist. 

Bull. 

That, in my opinion, is a convenient excuse invented by people who had power, but, again, in my opinion, lacked humanity/humanness/decency, and thus were inclined towards putting convenience/money/personal power even at others’ expense/etc. ahead of being genuinely as considerate of others as they could be.

If they had been decent people, their reaction would, again, in my opinion, would have been along the lines of “Oh gosh! Could I have harmed others? How can I make that right!” 

The fact that it was anything else raises questions about their moral/ethical/human worth, in my opinion. 

That covers the start of humans/humanity/the human species . . . what about when we evolve into something else? 

Well, again, in my opinion the principles that are described as certain rights would continue to exist and be applicable to the new species. It would get messy during the transition, as both species would have rights and the desire to know they will not be treated or thought of lesser than the other - and the way to do that is to live by the principles of what I will now start referring to as “sentient being rights”. 

To some extent we're practising for that now, in how we manage the issues associated with machine learning (aka “artificial intelligence”). The focus at the moment is - quite rightly, in my opinion - on protecting human rights, as those using or advocating for the technology are too inclined to be lacking in life experience and the awareness of other beings that life experience brings, as well as motivated towards being salespeople for personal reasons (wealth, kudos, etc). 

There will come a time, however, when machine learning constructs have personalities and other characteristics that mean they can pass “the Turing test”: will they have human or sentient being rights then? No, IMO: they will not be able to contribute to the spiritual evolution of existence in ways that humans and other sentient beings can, no matter how well programmed they are - and they will be able to assess options very well, but will still lack the connection of a soul (at least as we currently can conceive of them - but keep in mind that one day these may be biological in nature). 

At that point, however, the question as to whether or not those artificial machine learning constructs have rights is not the issue: the issue is the behaviour of humans - or whatever species we have become then, and what that shows about us: 

do we want to be the cold, callous monsters that fought against human rights now, or do we want to show that we are decent and caring in all our interactions?

To some extent that battle is also being fought now over regarding the environment, with some seeing nature as only existing to be exploited, whereas others now see the self-centred (selfish?) value to us of having a liveable environment, and a few others have always considered that the world of nature - even down to rocks and other inanimate objects - has a right to exist for its own sake. Those latter beings, the ones who always sought to act with genuine consideration no matter what society's laws or conventions were, are the ones I consider we should aspire to be like. 

Anyway, some food for thought perhaps.