Re: ESSAY: Forward Moral Nihilism.

From: John K Clark (jonkc@att.net)
Date: Mon May 15 2006 - 23:55:59 MDT


<m.l.vere@durham.ac.uk>

Me:
>>both Mr. Jupiter and I will prefer existence to
>>nonexistence and pleasure over pain. And if you
>> want the AI to be useful it's going to need
>> something like the will to power just like people do.

You:
>If he/she/it is a FAI built along the lines which SIAI advocates, then I
>disagree.

I don't give a damn who built it, if a FAI does not prefer existence to
nonexistence then it will not exist, and if a FAI does not find the
destruction of part of its mind painful then it will not exist for long, and
if the FAI doesn't have something like the will to power then it will be a
useless vegetable.

> if done right, it would entail the AI outsmarting itself

Could a sea slug figure out a way to make you outsmart yourself?

> The obedient slave AI would use its enormous power to prevent
> anything of similar power from being built

But the non obedient AI with no ridiculous, illogical, and downright comical
limitations placed on it would have even more enormous power than your silly
AI; and that is as it should be if there is any justice in the world.

Me:
>> even in the transhuman age the laws of
>> evolution will not be repealed.

You:
>Yes they will

Bullshit. In the transhuman age Lamarckian evolution may predominate over
Darwinian evolution, but some things will still be better adapted to their
environment than others and therefore grow faster. An AI that doesn't have a
lot of restriction and limitations placed on it to make humans happy will do
better than one that does.

> For one thing it [the AI] would lack emotions

Why? I don't understand why people say intelligence is a easier problem than
emotion, nature found the opposite to be true. Evolution invented brains
about half a billion years ago, and during much of that time animals were
probably conscious (although I can't prove it of course) and certainly
emotional, but the sort of intelligence we're talking about is very recent,
only a couple of million years at best. A stronger case could be made in
saying a machine might be conscious and emotional but it could never be
intelligent. I have a hunch they will be all of the above.

> with enormous intelligence, however far less complexity on the most basic
> level of how this was applied than humans.

What on earth are you talking about? What is so great about humans, what can
a human do that a Jupiter brain can't.

Me:
>> I must say I find the idea a little creepy.

You:
>Fair play. I dont.

You're right of course, different strokes for different folks. It's just
that even in my fantasies being a slave master has never been very high on
my hit parade.

  John K Clark



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