From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Fri May 21 2004 - 21:00:52 MDT
At 04:28 AM 21/05/04 -0400, you wrote:
>Michael Roy Ames wrote:
>>Keith,
>>Samantha wrote:
>>
>>>>What does logic or your feelings have to do with it?
>>>>We are fast developing the ability to reprogram
>>>>ourselves.
>>Then Keith replied:
>>
>>>Without the utmost caution, that way lies oblivion.
>>Gee, Keith, are you playing the harbinger of doom? I am eagerly looking
>>forward to reprogramming some of the counterproductive goals/desires in my
>>own mind... for a trivial example: my desire to consume large quantities of
>>bacon, cheese, chocolate and wine. Why would 'dialing down' my hunger for
>>fat, sugar and drugs lead me to doom?
>
>I think I have to side with Keith. I fear that human self-modification is
>far more dangerous than I would once have liked to imagine. Better to
>devise nutritious bacon, cheese, chocolate, and wine, than dare to mess
>with hunger - let alone anything more complex. You would practically need
>to be a Friendly AI programmer just to realize how afraid you needed to
>be, and freeze solid until there was an AI midwife at hand to help you
>*very slowly* start to make modifications that didn't have huge unintended
>consequences, or take you away from the rest of humanity, or destroy
>complexity you would have preferred to keep.
I think frequent backups/checkpoints would be a good idea as well. Some of
the changes you might regret.
Keith Henson
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