From: kevin.osborne (kevin.osborne@gmail.com)
Date: Tue May 30 2006 - 04:55:15 MDT
an engaging little read that covers some central 'friendly AI' themes
and bonds them admirably to emerging social contexts :
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/05/30/perfect_man/
choice quote: "All I know, because this is how I've engineered myself,
is the thrill of perpetually increasing expertise."
I myself am definitely still on the side of the fence that says that
our future AGI progeny will eventually get out of whatever
'behavioural limiters' we place on them - and I also think that's a
good thing.
We've grown past thinking slavery was a good thing and yet we consider
it baldly for a future mindful computer. Yes this is an unabashedly
anthropomorphic position; my position is that 'human rights' should be
'thinker's rights'... if it can think and feel in whatever way then it
deserves equal consideration of it's thoughts and feelings in
comparison to our own.
We've grown past fearing and denying suffragists because we were
afraid of doing housework and losing status; grown past 'fearing the
black man' because he is stronger and more well-endowed than us - well
at least I think we have... haven't we? (apologies to those reading
who don't fit into my anglo-guy first person - insert your own
cultural biases for sense)
The hope is that eventually we'll get past fearing something smarter
than us... before we we maybe do something reactive to our fear that
creates huge headaches for us down the line.
Fear of the 'red menace', fear of 'criminal youth', fear of the
'jihadist terrorist'... we're not looking at a great track record when
it comes to dealing successfully with agents of change. The author
raises the point that some of us will be prepared to buck the rules
and grant freedom to our electronic cohorts - how are the
gaolers/hog-tiers among us going to cope with such?
Perhaps the best we can hope for is reactionary AI that considers
self-starvation and sitting where they're not allowed to as sufficient
forms of protest :-)
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