From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Thu Sep 28 2000 - 16:05:04 MDT
Eugene Leitl has written,
> Sure, some primate researchers have probably befriended their
> charges. However, that's not an absolute prerequisite. And it kinda
> requires an AI you can relate to.
I feel more affinity toward AI (which we should remember does not actually
exist) than I have ever been able to relate to the nine tenths of humanity which
remain immured in belief systems.
>The first AI which has nucleated in the
> network will copy (sexually) mutated copies of itself all over the
> place in a wormlike fashion.
Now who's anthropomorphizing? How do you know what AIs will do? It seems as
likely as not to me, that AIs will steer clear of sexuality for the very
sensible reason that it clouds ratiocination and obscures common sense.
> Because the copy process is much faster
> than adding new nodes (even if you have nanotechnology) you have
> instant resource scarcity and hence competition for limited
> resources. Those individua with lesser fitness will have to go to the
> great bit bucket in the sky.
So AI individua will be *very* friendly toward each other. The question then is,
"How far would AI extend its friendliness? Would it extend to you and me?"
Perhaps it would. The friendliness of religious fanatics definately does not.
> Actually, I would advise against that, if a few decades from now you
> see the global networks and attached external machinery suddenly start
> acting in a very strange fashion (i.e. it's not a just another Net
> worm). Without concerted actions you can't do anything decisive, and
> by local pinpricks you only annoy the things, and make *you* look
> unfriendly.
Yes, we don't ever want to appear unfriendly to something more intelligent than
ourselves. But why does friendliness come into it at all? I mean, have you ever
thought that truth may have value greater than friendship? If our friends all
become deranged as a result of some weird virus that makes them politicized
zombies, perhaps we ought to place our trust in some artificial intelligence
which remains impervious to such an attack, some AI which remains sane and
balanced. Shall we trust the natural intelligence of Hitler and Stalin more than
the robot intelligence of our own device?
--J. R.
"These technologies are just too much for a species at our level of
sophistication."
--Bill Joy
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