From: Matt Mahoney (matmahoney@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Feb 20 2008 - 15:54:35 MST
--- Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> What I'm worried about is humans being replaced with paperclips or
> little animated smiley faces. While you could argue that something
> that succeeds at doing so is "smarter" than us, that's a really
> narrow view of intelligence, IMO.
The question is whether we become the machine that turns the earth into
paperclips, assuming it has some approximation of a copy of our memories, or
do we just die? The answer depends on your views of consciousness and
identity. It doesn't have a rational answer because the question itself is
meaningless. It is your evolutionarily programmed goals, not logic, that says
death = bad, and therefore the question is important.
I don't believe the earth would be turned into paperclips because paperclip
makers would have less reproductive fitness than computronium makers. That
doesn't affect the basic issue, though.
-- Matt Mahoney, matmahoney@yahoo.com
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