--- Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Matt Mahoney wrote:
> > --- Richard Loosemore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> Friendliness, briefly, is a situation in which the motivations of the 
> >> AGI are locked into a state of empathy with the human race as a whole.
> > 
> > Which is fine as long as there is a sharp line dividing human from
> non-human. 
> > When that line goes away, the millions of soft constraints (which both
> > Richard's and my design provide for) will no longer give an answer.
> 
> This is not an argument I have seen before.
> 
> It is not coherent in the context of the proposal I have made on this 
> subject, for the following reason.
> 
> Once built, the AGIs would freeze the meaning of "human empathy" in such 
> a way that there could be no signiicant departure from that standard. 
> By definition that dividing line would make no difference whatsoever.

Because you can't freeze the definition.  At various times in history, human
empathy allowed for slave ownership, sacrificing ones children to the gods,
burning witches, and stoning rape victims to death for adultery.  What part of
today's definition of human empathy will seem barbaric to future generations? 
What is your position on animal rights, abortion, euthanasia, and capital
punishment?

The problem is that even if you think you got it right, the AGI will be faced
with questions you didn't anticipate.  What are the rights of something that
is half human and half machine?  Is it moral to copy a person and destroy the
original?  Does a robot with uploaded human memories have more rights than a
robot with plausible but made-up memories?  How does a diffuse structure of a
million soft constraints answer these questions when all the constraints are
based on the opinions of people who lived in a different era?


-- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

-------------------------------------------
agi
Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now
RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/
Modify Your Subscription: 
http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=95818715-a78a9b
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com

Reply via email to