From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Apr 30 2001 - 19:53:10 MDT
On Mon, Apr 30, 2001 at 01:20:23PM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Anders Sandberg wrote:
> >
> > Do you really think so? When the SI parts the Red Sea, feeds the worlds
> > hungry, demonstrates that it can give total bliss and explain everything,
> > they will just say: "So what? You are note a real god, since you were created
> > by humans. *God* is beyond the universe and far, far beyond what you are. In
> > fact, He even predicted you - read Revelations about the Antichrist!"
> >
>
> Actually, it would be good to pause now and then and consider whether
> what we build is more likely to lead toward a heaven-on-earth or to
> hell. Now and then it is not a bad idea to just for a moment consider
> whether we are designing "the Antichrist" in what it does and does not
> mean for humanity.
I guess this is what the Friendly AI and ethics discussions are for.
> > You make the mistake to apply our way of thinking (highly empirical,
> > rationalist) to people who do not think that way (religious fanatics).
>
> You must be joking. Saying that any human based creature is fully
> rational in all respects is highly dubious. Implying that all relgious
> people are fanatics and/or so different from you and yours is also
> highly dubious and very much at the heart of religious and greater meme
> conflicts.
Hmm, how exactly do you interpret my sentence to mean what you oppose
above? What was saying is that we take a rational approach to things -
if B is a logical consequence of A, and we get convinced about A, then
we better accept B (and so on), not that we are perfectly rational
beings. And this sub-thread is actually about religious fanatics, not
the pleasant everyday people.
> > Sure,
> > plenty of them will fall to the lure of the SI, but given what we know of
> > human nature the SI would likely have to resort to direct brain surgery to
> > convince some of them. Which is of course the problem: exactly how far do we
> > allow a "friendly" entity to go in its quest to help us? I would definitely
> > not support such an entity if it ignored the right to one's life, body,
> > thoughts and property.
>
> Yes, if we start talking about direct brain surgery to change the minds
> of sentient beings then we are straying into "anti-Christ" territory.
My view too. This is where ethics becomes relevant. Even when people
disagree about particulars or even the foundations of ethics, it is
possible to get a broad consensus about humans having a right to their
lives, bodies, thoughts and property (although the last is often
ignored, despite being a corrolary of the first ones) as a kind of
simple default that can then be narrowed down by more complex ethical
systems by adding more do's and dont's. I see it as a good first step
towards a more sane society to get the mainstream to accept this
position as a kind of inter-group ethics and leave the rest to the
groups.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:07:23 MST