[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
When people discuss the ethics of the treatment of artificial intelligent
agents, it's almost always with the presumption that the key issue is the
subjective level of suffering of the agent. This isn't the only possible
consideration.
One other consideration is our stance relative to that agent. Are we just
acting in a selfish way, using the agent as simply a means to achieve our
goals? I'll just leave that idea open as there are traditions that see
value in de-emphasizing greed and personal acquisitiveness.
Another consideration is the inherent value of self-determination. This
is above any suffering that might be caused by being a completely
controlled subject. One of the problems of slavery was just that it
simply works better if you let people decide things for themselves.
Similarly, just letting an artificial agent have autonomy for its own sake
may just be a more effective thing than having it simply be a controlled
subject.
So I don't even think the "consciousness" of an artificial intelligent
agent is completely necessary in considering the ethics of our stance
towards it. We can consider our own emotional position and the inherent
value of independence of thinking.
andi
I'm inclined to agree - this will be an issue in the future... if you
have a robot helper and someone comes by and beats it to "death" in
front of your kids, who have some kind of attachment to it...a
relationship... then "crime" (i) may be said to be the psychological
damage to the children. Crime (ii) is then the murder and whatever one
knows of suffering inflicted on the robot helper. Ethicists are gonna
have all manner of novelty to play with.
cheers
colin
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agi
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