Backups

Teknophile · Post by **Teknophile** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 9:21 pm

After an IM conversation this afternoon, I'm curious to hear people's thoughts on the idea of backing up a fembot's consciousness.

For nonsentient 'bots, I suppose it's not so much of an issue - we back up our computer hard drives, so why not the simple "thought" processes of a Fection-style robot?

Still, as a friend pointed out, being able to create backups of a conscious mind raises a lot of thorny philosophical and ethical questions. While I'm not sure we really want to get into a debate about whether or not sentient androids would have souls, here are a few questions that, I think, might generate some interesting discussion:

-Why should a backup be made, or why not?

-If the original were destroyed, should the backup be treated as the original? Be given control of its assets? Or be treated as a completely different individual?

-What might happen if the original turned up after the backup is already "awakened", etc.?

-If you could back up your own consciousness, would you do it? Why or why not?

Now that I look at these questions, this looks awfully similar to the debate over human cloning some years ago....

Still, any thoughts?

Responses need not be based off of the questions above.

Stephaniebot · Post by **Stephaniebot** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 12:11 am

In a sense this comes down to your variety of fembot.

If she's an off the production line type model, then unless you customise a lot, then surely there is no need to save. A standard model could quickly be reformatted by the manufacturer's to the same basic model.
Similarly with minimal customisation, it wouldnt take long to do again.

Clearly it would be worth saving with a major customisation, if only to save all the time and effort if she did crash. But in the create type fembot, otherwise I would say no.

Transformation fembots is a whole different matter though! Or indeed any 'individually created' model in fact. As these would be based on one human mind it would be impossible to replicate without having a back up of said human mind, so...its pretty much a must in that sense.
By individually created I'm thinking of a woman's mind replicated into a fembot body for whatever reason without her giving up her human identity.

The main snag with backing up the human consciousness is that it can only be done to a fixed point, especially if said human becomes a fembot at that point. Though if you backed up the fembot hard drive over it at regular intervals...?
And as for the individual create, well the likelihood is that the fembot version would live a seperate life from the human version, and therefore future memories might be different anyway.

Me, I would have my consciousness backed up, but thats partly personal kink because I would so love the process of having it done. Also the thought that at sometime it might allow me to become a fembot, yum!
But then as most here are more owners than subjects, the general call on this might be different

PowerDroid5000 · Post by **PowerDroid5000** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 1:00 am

I wouldn't mind backing up my fembot's conciousness, one of the appeals of the whole fembot fetish is exactly this 'immortality' aspect.

-Fembot goes into BSOD (still runs in WinXP

)

-FORMAT drive: [/C]

-Install OS

-Runs Backup.exe

and it's good to go again!

I also wouldn't mind backing up my own conscience, you know, for all those "i wish i could forget that" moments...

Someone yelled at you? load backup
watched a bad movie? load backup
Just saw your 68 yr old neighbor topless in her new bikini? LOAD BACKUP!!!

PsychoKirby · Post by **PsychoKirby** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 5:32 am

This is actually something of a plot point in the novel I've been writing.

Anyway, for my opinion, regardless of their level of intelligence, a robot IS a machine (not that that's a bad thing, of course). There shouldn't be too much of an issue with creating a backup, although it should really only be done if the original is damaged beyond repair.

As for if I'd want to be backed up? Well, such a thing really doesn't sound feasible, but assuming it does, I don't think I would. Immortality has many, many ways it can go wrong. (Although I would keep a backup around in case I change my mind. >_>)

andoroido · Post by **andoroido** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:32 am

Two novels I read maybe 20 years ago explored these topics quite a bit.

Mind Transfer by Janet Asimov

and

Virtual Girl by Amy T(h)ompson (sp?)

Give you one guess as to the main theme of Mind Transfer.
Human minds transferred/copied into robot doubles, by choice. Really it's a copy, or is it? While the human can continue to live, age and die.

Virtual Girl is about the first true A.I. gynoid made by a typical lone scientist. Things happen and she has to live on her own, but slowly degrades and ends up relocating her creator. To do the needed maintenance on her, he copies/backs her up onto a computer with camera attached to keep her A.I. copy happy. And her A.I. copy watches as the creator disconnects the power supply of the original body, while the original A.I. is still inside, effectively "killing" her original. Her creator doesn't even think of it that way. But her 2nd self has to deal wtih knowing she's just a copy.
Though the world's second A.I. (a net-based "friend" of hers) develops a way to actually transfer, rather than copy and delete the original.

As for someday maybe owning a gynoid, it depends on her AI.
If it's just a very relaistic simulation, then I'd love the ability to reinstall a backup from 2 days ago if I did something stupid to piss her off, or some such thing. [What man doesn't want to be able to make a woman forget something we did wrong?]

If it was a "real" AI, I'd still want the backup in case of a virus or hardware problem.
But for optional reinstalls, it becomes an issue of whether you can reinstall her personna without her noticing the "missing time".
What if she has free will and over a couple years, drifts apart from you?
Reboot her back to 2 years ago when things were happy?
She is still your "property", right? Or is she a slave?

As for myself backed up? No. I'd only go for a Ghost In the Shell cyborgization with my original brain.

Sthurmovik · Post by **Sthurmovik** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:15 pm

From a story point of view I go out of my way to make the copying of sentient AI minds impossible or impractical. Usually I have the act of copying the mind destroy or corrupt the mind in some way. Sort of like the uncertainty principle. The reason is that copying can completely ruin the balance of a story world, taking away the risk of death and the uniqueness of individuals.

I definitely feel that a copy is basically a separate individual and if a bot is deleted it is killed even if there is a backup.

For the legal problem I think a copy would act as the original and should be treated as the original unless there is some directive not to. It wouldn't be fair to being a copy with intimate knowledge of the original into the world and treat her like a newborn. This is also the reason why having multiple copies around at the same time would be a huge problem. If the two ever did come to co-exist I suspect the original would be responsible for the copy and probably owe her some part of her wealth.

ehy · Post by **ehy** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 12:40 pm

Well, in my view (and I think this will surprise nobody who knows me), an android is a computer like any other, and property like any other. If I want to back up my android so as to preserve all the programming and knowledge and experience she has acquired, I can. And I would - why would I want to have to teach her over again all the things I want her to know, and train her to do the things I want her to do, if her memory should be damaged?

If I want to duplicate her personality into another body, I can. If I want to erase the original, I can. If I want to reset her to an earlier time to wipe some memories that don't please me, I can. It doesn't matter whether the duplicate is the same individual or not; she can't own any assets and has no rights so whatever I choose to do with her is fine.

There really are no thorny philosophical or ethical questions here unless we assume the android is capable of having something like a soul (by whatever definition we use that makes it something humans have). And I'm pretty sure I, at least, don't want to get into that debate (again); I know where I stand on it, both in my view of how reality is likely to work and in what I prefer in my fantasies.

EHY

andoroido · Post by **andoroido** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 7:35 pm

If minds COULD be backed up, it would lead to some new sorts of gray areas of possibly criminal activity.

Let's say I somehow manage to date a girl out of my league for a month or two. She's so out of my league I know the relationship is doomed, but I really dig the girl.
Can I download a copy of her brain while she's sleeping, have a matching body built, and if/when she eventually dumps me, just turn on the copy, who has been programmed to "love" me?

Could a whole new field of stalking form? The stalkers' 2 goals being capturing a 3-D image of the body, and somehow copying the brain?

Or 200 years in the future, if I meet a free-willed, but married, gynoid. Can I just order up (eitehr legally or through a black market) a copy of her for myself?

Or just have 2 copies of my gynoid babe, one for home, and one for the office. Maybe with slightly different personality or abilities. If I sleep with my gynoid secretary, is it really "cheating" if she's a duplicate of my gynoid "wife" at home?

Could future gynoid prostitutes sell the rights to own a copy of their personality and body stats so you can make a copy of her?

So many possibilities from copies. Some good, some not, IMHO.
but it all hinges on "Do they have souls?/Are they REAL?" ethical problem.

Stephaniebot · Post by **Stephaniebot** » Sun Jul 19, 2009 12:51 am

I know its easy to say who can tell what might be possible in the distant future (more than a century on) but I think for now its fair to assume that mind downloading would be a pretty complex process for many years to come. So the idea of being able to do it while someone slept overnight only gives me a fit of the giggles.

And being pedantic, in the case of the gf, that would surely be replication of the mind (ie the girl also retains her mind) rather than strictly downloading it for the purposes of transferring it into a fembot?

The marriage thing is assuming that marriage to gynoids becomes legal at some point! And given the current situation with same sex (between humans) marriages that may rank as wildly optimistic. But again, far enough into the future...? But unless they are given full identities and rights, then that question really doesnt arise.

Or 200 years in the future, if I meet a free-willed, but married, gynoid. Can I just order up (eitehr legally or through a black market) a copy of her for myself?

I suspect that unless these are human tf gynoids rather than created, then the blunt answer is that there will be only so many models made, so calling up a copy of one wouldnt be tricky. And as I suspect many human tf's would choose a younger, prettier body form...

Or just have 2 copies of my gynoid babe, one for home, and one for the office. Maybe with slightly different personality or abilities. If I sleep with my gynoid secretary, is it really "cheating" if she's a duplicate of my gynoid "wife" at home?

Unless they are given rights of some kind I very much doubt this would rank as cheating. But if they were, and had different identity definitions, then yes, I suspect it would be

Could future gynoid prostitutes sell the rights to own a copy of their personality and body stats so you can make a copy of her?

As I said, unless they make unique fembot models then I very much doubt that anyone other than the manufacturing/transformation company would have rights to any fembot body forms anyway.
But the possibility of human prostitutes (or more likely porn stars) doing this would seem a road they might go down.

xodar · Post by **xodar** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 5:03 am

What you need to back up is the behavior she learns in the daily course of living with you. You should do that regularly.
Possibly you should buy a couple of the same models when they're new. I admit I have several microwaves and coffeemakers in the closet in case the current one craters.

Conscious? They're machines.
But I have thought lately about how they would respond to the fact that I have always had dogs, which I treat as persons -- as children who are physical adults, yet would probably not treat a bot exactly the same way. Or would they notice.
A dog dies and it's gone. A machine can be brought back.