--- Bryan Bishop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On Friday 30 November 2007, Matt Mahoney wrote:
> > How can we design AI so that it won't wipe out all DNA based life,
> > possibly this century?
> >
> > That is the wrong question.
> 
> How can we preserve DNA-based life? Perhaps by throwing it out into the 
> distant reaches of interstellar space? The first trick would be to plot 
> a path through the galaxy for such a ship such that the path of travel 
> goes into various nebula or out of the line of sight of the earth due 
> to obstructions and so on, until a significant distance away. Anybody 
> who knows anything about this path might have to be murdered, for the 
> sake of life. 

Again, that is not my question.  My question requires rational thought without
the biases that are programmed into every human brain through natural and
cultural selection: fear of death, belief in consciousness and free will, self
preservation, cooperation and competition with other humans, and a quest for
knowledge.  It is unlikely that any human to set these aside and seek a
rational answer.  Perhaps we could create a simulation without these biases
and ask it what will happen to the human race, although I don't think you
would accept the answer.  To a human, it seems irrational that we rush to
build that which will cause our extinction.  To a machine it will be perfectly
rational; it is the result of the way our brains are programmed.

I am not asking what we should do, because that is beyond our control.  The
question is what will we do?


-- Matt Mahoney, [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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