From: Matt Mahoney (matmahoney@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Feb 10 2009 - 09:35:59 MST
--- On Tue, 2/10/09, Brad Johnson <shadow_slysar@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Which method of teleportation might occur first: Chemical
> teleportation or a spacetime physics style?
Neither. Teleportation is a thought experiment to help one address the ethical issues of uploading. Making a copy of you and killing one of the copies is logically equivalent to not making a copy in the first place. It only seems different because you fear death.
The first uploads will not be very good copies. They will probably not be embodied at all, just programs running on the internet. The program won't know everything about you, maybe just enough to fool your co-workers but not your close family. The upload behavior will be based on public knowledge about you, plus what you tell it and what it knows about human behavior in general. We won't even think of them as uploads, more like smart avatars. It is not like you will suddenly have the option to have your brain scanned and all your memories copied into a younger clone of yourself.
As hardware becomes faster, AI software gets better, and public surveillance becomes more pervasive, avatars will get more realistic to the point that we start treating them like living humans and make them our heirs. But I think the process will be gradual. People will realize the immediate benefits of having all of their conversations, movements, and financial information* recorded, published, and made searchable, so as a side benefit, brain scanning technology will not be necessary.
*For one thing, nobody will hire you, rent to you, or conduct any business transaction with you if you keep your finances a secret. Examples of this trend:
- We prefer credit cards to cash.
- We demand seller ratings, and sellers demand credit scores.
- We prefer email services that use AI to scan our mail (Yahoo, Gmail, etc) to encrypted mail.
- We prefer public forums to private email.
- We prefer sensors in our cars that track our movements so we don't have to stop and pay cash at toll booths.
- We carry GPS cell phones.
- We demand surveillance cameras in every public place (which will be even more convenient with AI when you can google "where was Matt Mahoney on Saturday?" and get an annotated map with links to public high resolution webcams with audio that recognized my face or my car, and I'll get a text message that you made the query).
-- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com
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