RE: Eli and Brian Update [Fwd: [>Htech] "Friendly AI" released for commentary]

From: Joseph S Barrera III (joe@barrera.org)
Date: Thu Apr 19 2001 - 19:06:20 PDT


Also sprach Lucas Gonze:
> What I don't get about his stuff is how he sidesteps the concept of self. IE,
> in his concept it is somehow fundamental that AI things would not have self. I
> get his point that his AI things aren't evolved, so there is no selection, so
> there is no pressure to create units of selection, so there's nothing to have
> selfhood.

Damn, I guess I'm really going to have to read this thing.
But my immediate reaction is, what the hell does evolution
have to do with a sense of self?

We are actually incredibly clueless about the concept of a sense of
self. (In earlier ages we might have called it a "soul"?) You can't
even prove to me that you have a sense of self, instead of just acting
like you have a sense of self. So do pets have a sense of self? Do
insects? Trees? How can you tell?

I've always felt that if you build something that acts like it has a
sense of self, then you are morally obligated to *treat* it like has a
sense of self. Hmm, but then there's the question of, is it possible
to build something that has a sense of self but has been engineered to
act like it doesn't? Jeez, what an ethical nightmare.

- Joe

-- 
Joseph S. Barrera III
Software Architect, Broadbase (=> Kana) Software, Inc.
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