Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by dale coba » Tue Jul 15, 2014 5:15 am

For our purposes, "free will" is a messy shorthand, left over from when priests debated some nonsense about whether God setting everything into motion meant people were without choice, God's hand puppets.
Svengli wrote:On the other hand, it seems like it might be possible to create an AI in the fashion you'd create a child - with love and devotion, in such a way that this entity would become a part of a community and wouldn't be left with just "basic skills plus freedom".
Does the A.I. get a right to create children? to design them?
Ten thousand generations of grandchildren, in a few weeks?

You can't contain it.
You can only avoid creating it.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by darkbutflashy » Tue Jul 15, 2014 6:34 am

That's a moot point. The crucial thing about "Ten thousand generations of grandchildren, in a few weeks?" isn't ethics but resources. If these don't allocate too much resources, they aren't a threat. If they do, they are easily toppled by cutting the resources. Most likely they will do it by themselves, it happens in nature every day.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by Keizo » Tue Jul 15, 2014 7:42 am

I can truly understand the very heavily romanticized notion of having an artificial partner with all the curiosity, charisma, spontaneity, and emotional reciprocation as a human. Why isn't a very good simulation enough? Yes, having another being MUTUALLY choose YOU is one of the greatest affirmations that one can feel and a source of inspiration, solace, and happiness. What you are suggesting is that this romanticized artificial being will actually choose to stay with you. While that may be possible, who is to say that this entity will not see that there are others out there that offer more opportunity and resources? After you've put your heart and soul (and time and money) into this relationship, this being may CHOOSE to simply walk away from you since it doesn't have the innate biological drives that we do or a truly binding agreement. Congratulations. It has free will.

Meaning no disrespect, I also find the idea of a transformed human disturbing even though that currently is a possibility with a potential impending singularity scenario. How do you know that this person will not go insane without normal stimulus or being overwhelmed by mentally existing in a plane of cyberspace? How do you know that new found "powers" of mentally controlling other computers, understanding code, using their processing power to add to their own, etc., won't corrupt that person. It is certainly more likely that someone already corrupt such as an ultra-rich and ruthless Wallstreet type will be among the first to be able to afford the chance at immortality with an artificial avatar that can exist simultaneously in a body and network. What fail-safes do you propose to contain that ego?

At least a baby is self-contained and equal to us. When one argues that it is just as irresponsible to create a potential Hitler, remember that another person still has to grow and convince others to follow him/her or become a serial killer after years of development. What Dale argues "Ten thousand generations of grandchildren, in a few weeks" is more about software than the hardware that was the counterpoint. Even now algorithmic processing can create thousands of paths to a desired end in the matter of seconds. Essentially, it will go trough "generations" of test models to find the most efficient answer. Imagine that new generation that is even more advanced being able to create something (or the model for something) more advanced than itself far faster than we ever could and in turn that new generation continuing the advancement on the previous, and so on, and so on. Perhaps we will need an egocentric transformed super-computing megalomaniac to stop it.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by N6688 » Tue Jul 15, 2014 9:46 am

Well we kind of already saw the answer to this question in the show äkta människor.
In this show free will was FORCED onto androids, and it went almost completely wrong.
Some of them resent humans (Niska, Bea, Rick) and believe them to be better then us.
While the others barely hold their sanity.
In my humble opinion, let machines just stay machines.
Only trouble would come of this.
"Robot wives have needs, too"
Goku, Dragonball fighterZ 2017

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by darkbutflashy » Tue Jul 15, 2014 7:53 pm

Keizo, Dale,

my point is, there is no way to stop someone to do something by just ruling it out. You have to enforce a rule and I doubt anyone interested in the topic could be hold back by the measures we would accept to take within our own "ethics". So the original question doesn't make too much sense to me. In contrary, I think any "ethics" which is willing to sacrifice a single human life for a claim of any kind -most dubious the ones citing the "future of mankind"- is fundamentally wrong.

The only question for me is if the AI we talk about counts as "human life". I have no problem sacrifing a not-qualified AI for any reason or none at all. I would take care of an AI I observed as intelligent and devoted as my pet. I certainly would protect an AI which is intelligent enough to qualify as a human (much more than passing the turing test). And if it that would be my own creation and everyone else insists of deleting it out of fear and ignorance, I can make a safe bet I'll take any measure to save it.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by dale coba » Wed Jul 16, 2014 3:58 am

darkbutflashy wrote:The only question for me is if the AI we talk about counts as "human life".
Do you need a dictionary? That ain't human, under any definition or circumstances.

If that's your idea of a question, I don't think any of my answers could get through your filters.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by Keizo » Wed Jul 16, 2014 4:36 am

I will yield to you on that point. The point that obviously someone, somewhere at some point will create such a being. We can only hope that it will be the right type of person who will guide this being to embrace consideration and cooperation. Even Oppenheimer deeply regretted his role in creating the atomic bomb as necessary an evil as it was at the time. Germany was on the brink of creating their own. So, obviously, we have to get there first. While I think it is honorable that you would make such sacrifices to this AI, the assumption that a Free Will, which was the original subject of this argument, will remain as loyal as a pet is not only condescending to that being but flawed because its potential is so great. An AI that is intelligent , and therefore as curious, as a human has much more options and abilities to increase its intelligence than we do, and thus, surpass us at a far greater rate than we can contain. It can even end up creating a superior physical body and replace us at the top of the proverbial food chain. I know a lot of people here may think that's a good thing but other humans suppress us as it is. Also, when you speak of resources, an AI can survive in a wasteland far better than we can. That is why the argument against true free will has to be made.

Basically we would be creating a being with the intelligence of a god, but that can also replicate itself and create its own safeguards. We can only hope that such a being will evolve towards the spectrum of benevolence instead of abuse of power. We can only hope that it will decide to aide us instead of rule us in its opinion of perfection. We are certainly not perfect so we may be too flawed and dangerous to be part of its world. Or it may simply ignore us since we are so beneath it. But I doubt it will remain a loving and loyal partner only to one person. Just hope that it will let you keep a dumbed down avatar of itself out of kindness, pity or gratitude while its off exploring greater things. Obviously this avatar won't have free will since it will only be part of a greater entity that is controlling it while simultaneously living its own form of life.

The being you propose will have to have very strict limitations that cannot be overcome, such as the ability to network and increase its mental capacities exponentially. Of course it can't be too much physically stronger than us either because that's just asking for trouble. Still, someone, somewhere will at some point will create that as well. Hell. DARPA is already working on it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C70QRbawN8

Thought I'd just throw that in ;)

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by smalk » Wed Jul 16, 2014 5:52 am

I wouldn't see the point in creating another mind and then preventing it to challenge mine.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by Keizo » Wed Jul 16, 2014 6:10 am

Good luck. Free Will without boundaries is playing with fire. This isn't Commander Data, this is potential reality with real consequences. The "Ethics" of creating "Free Willed Androids" have to take into consideration that Free Will also applies to negative attributes as well. And you don't necessarily have to have morals or emotions to have free will. The fictional character (but realistically possible) Hannibal Lector, was highly intelligent but still only to a degree. I'm sure he could certainly argue or rationalize his perspective but to let him loose on society is irresponsible. Now imagine him without physical boundaries or mental limitations. I'm not saying that an AI will attain these negative attributes. Maybe knowledge will lead to its enlightenment and it will enlighten us in turn (those that will listen, anyway). At any rate it will quickly grow bored with our "mental challenges" and move on. You can't argue with crazy.

I'll take my realistic simulation of a beautiful woman but with all the positive attributes and safeguards in place. One can still have simulated challenges using probability models that can be just as stimulating especially as technology progresses. I'm going to respectfully bow out of this conversation now. I've been reminded why I stopped joining discussions in the first place.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by dale coba » Wed Jul 16, 2014 6:41 am

How soon shall we say,
"DARPA is become Skynet, the destroyer of worlds"?

If it didn't mean, y'know, extinction, I'd say whoever makes these lethal, incorrect, immoral choices deserves a worse fate than their Skynet will swiftly visit upon them.

It is very easy, the norm, for people to not have thought out all the possible consequences. Now I see there can be nothing remotely ethical about risking everyone's everything for the sake of EGO and NOTHING BUT EGO, as there is no objective need or value for this A.I.. Everything people want an A.I. for, can be handled with so much less effort - except this "true romance" concept.

I've never been interested in true A.I. romance, and I've always been interested in fake A.I. fake romance. I don't personally know what [psychological/personal/emotional] value that concept has for others. I am inclined to guess it has to do with wanting a mirror, an equal, she who won't reject his nature because she shares that nature - like Frankenstein's monster's would-be bride. Asperger's, more than any other trait, has been the subject of FC members' self-examination. A true A.I. fembot would be a better mirror than a typical woman's emotional palette for a man examining his nature with Aspergers.

I speculate a lot about all people, since I took that course in epigenetics; but what I most want to express to the FC community is that I really believe in the validity of your question. I believe in the great value behind the various semi-conscious reasons to want that true A.I. romance experience. I believe in your quest for the feeling, and I believe that the internal-personal state being sought could be a state of grace - but actual building such a machine can never be ethical nor responsible.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by smalk » Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:09 am

As a computer scientist, I believe that Singularity will come from a trans-human mind (human mind enhanced with technology), as opposed to coming from an artificial mind (technology where you inject human concepts). Presumably, the first ones to attain first-humanism will be the Fortune 50 CEO's. My bet is on the economical business. You can develop further my point about the future on your own - not so spectacular as Skynet's nukes, but likewise terrifying. Good luck trying to prevent that.

So, me playing with a fembot in my garage trying to make her beat me at Go? Really not so important.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by dale coba » Wed Jul 16, 2014 9:49 am

smalk, as you say the true A.I. will become available to only a few, after which [smashy-smashy, B00M, etc.] There wouldn't be enough time between invention and calamity.

So long as your gal isn't [whatever true A.I. is], I see no problem ethically whatsoever; but I think you will need a bunker rather than a garage.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by smalk » Wed Jul 16, 2014 10:56 am

dale coba, trans-humanism doesnt'd deal with "true" A.I., it deals with enhancement of the human body thanks to technology.

I conjecture that a really intelligent super-mind would find no real utility in a destroyed world. An Orwellian world (1984) is far more profitable.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by darkbutflashy » Wed Jul 16, 2014 2:44 pm

dale coba wrote:
darkbutflashy wrote:The only question for me is if the AI we talk about counts as "human life".
Do you need a dictionary? That ain't human, under any definition or circumstances.
I don't think a dictionary helps defining things yet nonexistant. If that's your level of argument, yes, I don't think it's possible for you to get through to me. Sorry.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by darkbutflashy » Wed Jul 16, 2014 3:45 pm

Keizo, I agree with your observations but like to get it clear that my argument was, and still is, that our own ethics is blasted away if we talk about "the whole picture" instead of the individual's grip of the problem. That is because we can't observe "the whole picture" and even less so if fundamental facts are still unknown.

To take a current example which has the potential to destroy our own livelihood, let's discuss transgenic organisms. Is it "ethical" to create those? If so, which features should be allowed and which shouldn't?

No, don't let us discuss this. Please don't. :mrgreen:

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by DukeNukem 2417 » Thu Jul 17, 2014 6:22 am

dale coba wrote: What do you want, Huxley's "Brave New World"?
I think Styx did an album based on that book.... :mrgreen:

But seriously, folks...I, myself, am of the hopelessly naive type, but hopefully, even with my limited understanding of philosophy and/or reliance on TV Tropes, I can get a point across.

Within my own work, The V.I.C.I. Diaries, the ALPA (and, to a similar but somewhat different extent, the Coalition) exists to foster cooperation and understanding between humanity and machinekind. Vicki herself has shown how dangerous free will can be (remember the end of "Falling Away"? If not, go look it up right now), but at the same time, she's also shown the benefits of it. And while I'm thinking about it, let's think back to that whole SkyNET thing: SkyNET was A COMPUTER. Not an android progammed to think or feel like a human being, but A COMPUTER (probably a Dell, actually :lol: ). Take a machine that "thinks" using only cold logic, put it in charge of the nation's nuclear arsenal, and then freak out when it becomes self-aware? OF COURSE it's going to go all "nuke the world"!

So....yeah. Instead of going all "robots with free will are going to kill all of us", I say "robots with free will should receive the same lessons about morals and ethics that humans do". Yes, there are a bunch of idiots out there who probbly think that a robot uprising will happen right after we finish wiping out the zombie uprising (news flash, folks: ZOMBIES AREN'T GOING TO HAPPEN), but I prefer to be the "glass half full" type. Short answer: Yes, I think it is ethical to create free-willed androids....as long as we teach them well. You get what you give, after all....

Oh, and a bit of a tip, here: Whoever on this forum gets their robot girlfriend first, hide every Terminator movie you have (if you have any), otherwise she might think it's an educational film. :wink: :lol:
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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by dale coba » Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:16 am

There can be no bottle to hold the genie.
So don't make the genie.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by Frostillicus » Thu Jul 17, 2014 8:51 am

I guess there isn't much more that can be said. I bow to all the pro-lifers superior logic.

Keizo... go to hell :P
Thaw me out when robot wives are cheap and effective.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by Svengli » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:55 pm

smalk wrote:As a computer scientist, I believe that Singularity will come from a trans-human mind (human mind enhanced with technology), as opposed to coming from an artificial mind (technology where you inject human concepts).
1) Are you really a computer scientist? - I've got a fair amount of math and computer programming experience but I'm not a computer scientist in the sense of someone who is paid to research and publish papers about algorithms and related things. If you are, I'm curious what you're working on.

2) I think the Church/Turing thesis would assert that the concept of "programming" as such is independent from humanness and thus if you have a "programmed intelligence" there is no certainty that this programming is specifically human. "Just sayin'"

3) All this goes back to the history of humanity's "artificial intelligence" project. This history (encompassing only 15-50 totes) could be summarized thus. From 195? to 197?, a direct effort to produce AI was engaged in by the nascent programming community (MIT labs, shrdlu, lisp, etc). At the when AI seemed reasonably promising (1982) Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry began an effort to expand it to an "industrial scale" and at that point, the effort fell flat on it's face, producing an "AI winter" in the US and world where virtually all ordinary AI project went unfunded. Once the AI winter subsided, some projects remained but they generally labeled themselves "machine learning" or some other label needed to avoid the depricated tag AI. This resulted in the technologies of neural networks and HMMs (Ray Kurzweil's darlings) becoming the dominant approaches, despite these being nothing more than what might called "high level heuristics". I mean, neural networks are mathematically equivalent to SVMs, (support vector machines) and ultimately all SVMs is cleverly extrapolate a function's behavior on a high dimensional space which is cool but leaves extrapolation process in a state that can't be reasoned-about further - IE, a clever dead-ends.

4) The idea of simulating, enhancing, in any-way-modifying the brain has, over the last decade or so, been the substituted for taking the AI project seriously. The immediate problem, that is becoming more and more clear, is that any effort to the understand/modify/whatever the brain requires a mastery of vast-scale projects which only the possession of the real AI already could offer. I mean, the especially cool thing about intelligent is the ability to satisfy multiple constraints in multiple dimensions and aspects of any system whatsoever. We humans can do that but in encountering the brain, our own brain, we also encounter a thing where we have reached the limit of the reach of this ability. Computers haven't helped - everyone laughs/sneer/throws-things-at Henry Markram. Folks have rightly taken to pointing out that the human brain is the most complex thing in the known universe and by a wide margin. No, simulating/modifying the brain isn't an end-run around understanding cognition.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/52 ... n-project/

5) Understanding cognition is hard but it's not impossible. I like some of Nicholas L. Cassimatis' arguments. See: http://aaaipress.org/ojs/index.php/aima ... /1879/1777

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by smalk » Sat Jul 19, 2014 1:51 am

@Svengli: no, I'm just faking it in order to impress people in a forum. xD
Currently I'm publishing some work on graphical statistical models.

Forgive me, I don't understand your point in 2). You're talking about the same Church-Turing thesis that I know, in respect to the nature of the functions that are effectively calculable?

I prefer to assess your reasoning as an interesting philosophical conjecture on the topic.

You base your argumentation on the difficolties to modify / enhance directly the human brain. And in that I conjecture you're right. But you're missing the external enhancements.

Let me give you a point about trans-humanism: more than 50% of Americans live daily with a portable calculator more powerful than the one required to take a human to the moon. Research have shown that accidental breaks of this system (like in losing / breaking / having stolen the smartphone) can result in significant pain and short-therm loss of productivity for the human part. Big G's glasses are the new paradigm shift.

Just think at what would be the next levels.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by daphne » Sat Jul 19, 2014 11:13 pm

I'm guessing none of you have ever had any children.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by Svengli » Sun Jul 20, 2014 8:38 pm

smalk wrote:@Svengli: no, I'm just faking it in order to impress people in a forum. xD
Currently I'm publishing some work on graphical statistical models.
I wasn't asking as a challenge. Or perhaps, not just a challenge but also an invitation in the sense that I'd invite you to roll out whatever more sophisticated ideas you might have on this subject. Seriously, I think it would be really great to have a computer scientist discussing all this, though, correct me if I'm wrong, but I recognized that CS has mostly abandoned any goal of "hard AI", and I think that's sad in some ways (and comforting on other ways, as one might imagine).
Forgive me, I don't understand your point in 2). You're talking about the same Church-Turing thesis that I know, in respect to the nature of the functions that are effectively calculable?
Well, Church-Turing asserts, more or less, that any determinate computing process can be simulated by a recursive function or a Turing machine. Which is essentially asserting that "computation" is outside of human beliefs and viewpoints - for example, DNA is a computation system of sorts.
-- Anyway, that was a response to what I read earlier as an implication that computation was based on "human concepts". Perhaps you edited that reference or I misunderstood you but in any case, my main argument is that computation by itself isn't "human" or "not human" by itself.
Let me give you a point about trans-humanism: more than 50% of Americans live daily with a portable calculator more powerful than the one required to take a human to the moon. Research have shown that accidental breaks of this system (like in losing / breaking / having stolen the smartphone) can result in significant pain and short-therm loss of productivity for the human part. Big G's glasses are the new paradigm shift. Just think at what would be the next levels.
Hmm,
Maybe. The problem is I don't see any evidence smart phones make people smarter. Especially, I don't see any evidence always having a smart phone makes someone smarter than someone that sometimes consults Google but walks around without their laptop. Indeed, if the attitudes of the overall programming community are an indication, the server engineers who enable Android and Glass quite often aren't consumers of instant access and that doesn't prevent their activities. More Android and Glass might make you something but it doesn't seem to unambiguously make you smarter. Perhaps certain people can become "transhuman" in a fashion without being smarter as such but rather by being more "up-to-the-minute" or "tuned-in (to the whole of socio-economic-technological process)". Now that does seem like the way things are going. It is simply that I don't think that will lead much more than an intensification of what we have now.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by Svengli » Sun Jul 20, 2014 8:46 pm

daphne wrote:I'm guessing none of you have ever had any children.
That may indeed the heart of the problem, especially if one were to consult Mary Daly. :? :timeout:

However, the logical structure of my argument would be "Hey, a human being raising a kid, even with all the in-born biological instincts that you'd expect would guide us, is an insanely difficult proposition. Now imagine conjuring an intelligent entity into existence and the entity not having any of the contexts of even a baby with a family. How nuts is that?"

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by smalk » Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:41 am

Svengli wrote: I wasn't asking as a challenge. Or perhaps, not just a challenge but also an invitation in the sense that I'd invite you to roll out whatever more sophisticated ideas you might have on this subject. Seriously, I think it would be really great to have a computer scientist discussing all this, though, correct me if I'm wrong, but I recognized that CS has mostly abandoned any goal of "hard AI", and I think that's sad in some ways (and comforting on other ways, as one might imagine).
Yep. That's sad, but it's how life (and academic research) works. In the '70 we where sure that conscient AI were just years away. We have accomplished a lot, but on specific and narrow fields.
Svengli wrote: Well, Church-Turing asserts, more or less, that any determinate computing process can be simulated by a recursive function or a Turing machine. Which is essentially asserting that "computation" is outside of human beliefs and viewpoints - for example, DNA is a computation system of sorts.
-- Anyway, that was a response to what I read earlier as an implication that computation was based on "human concepts". Perhaps you edited that reference or I misunderstood you but in any case, my main argument is that computation by itself isn't "human" or "not human" by itself.
I see this topic are refering the more broad question: is Mathematics "human"?
Anyway, I agree with you ;)

Svengli wrote: Hmm,
Maybe. The problem is I don't see any evidence smart phones make people smarter. Especially, I don't see any evidence always having a smart phone makes someone smarter than someone that sometimes consults Google but walks around without their laptop. Indeed, if the attitudes of the overall programming community are an indication, the server engineers who enable Android and Glass quite often aren't consumers of instant access and that doesn't prevent their activities. More Android and Glass might make you something but it doesn't seem to unambiguously make you smarter. Perhaps certain people can become "transhuman" in a fashion without being smarter as such but rather by being more "up-to-the-minute" or "tuned-in (to the whole of socio-economic-technological process)". Now that does seem like the way things are going. It is simply that I don't think that will lead much more than an intensification of what we have now.
With a smartphone, I can know my exact position on the earth at anytime. For any sailor of the last 19th century, this would be a "superpower".
Or else, I can "remember" almost any philosophical book with great precision. Again, for the past academics this would qualify as magic.

Just simple examples, but I think you got my point.
Last edited by smalk on Tue Jul 29, 2014 2:19 am, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Is it ethical to create "Free Willed Androids"

Post by Svengli » Tue Jul 29, 2014 12:37 am

Well,

I suppose the criteria I'd choose for an "enhancement that matters" would be whether an enhanced entity could manage large and complex projects in a notably superior way. More simply, "can it make you a better programmer." I tend to think smart phones, wearable computers or even more advanced but similar technologies, can do that.

I'm not picking this at random or because I think it's the most important thing about being human. Rather, these are what I think would be needed to produce an autonomously acting entity, say a fembot.

While the various enhancing devices and software that are appearing these days may be quite good for some thing and may qualify someone for the term "enhanced" in some senses or even magically powerful in some senses. And while there are ethical questions to enhancing a person, these are different questions than the questions involved in constructing an autonomously acting entity - and I kind of think that's because these are two somewhat different things.

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