From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Apr 27 2002 - 16:52:07 MDT
In reply to Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Thu Apr 25 2002 - 16:35:58 MDT
Yeah, the enhanced intelligence doesn't bother me. I
recall writing back in the mid '80's about what
happens when you "enhance" your toddler with a system
that keeps him from playing in the traffic, but also
serves as an auxiliary memory, where the kid can store
binocular video clips, audio, mental notes, etc., as
well as possibly shorthand responses, behavioral
algorythms, until the kid/computer sytem becomes so
integrated that the kid alone may no longer be able to
function. Is this a BAD thing?
Maybe it depends upon whether it increases the
likelihood or possibility of interfering with the
normal volition choices that the kid might make
unenhanced. If it could become a control mechanism
for outside interests, so that the kid simply becomes
a slave, then that would be objectionable. If the
computer side learns so well what the kid wants to
hear or how he wants things to be interpreted, without
the structural feedback that normally keeps us sane,
then that too could be very negative. Maybe the kid
becomes a Walter Mitty, whose enhanced reality is so
much more fun that he no longer is willing to even
deal with real reality.
Maybe the computer side, even though perhaps not
conscious in the sense that we are, develops its own
sets incentives that diverge from the values of the
kid. With the advantage of built-in, sophisticated
algoryths on the computer side, coupled with tight
coupling to the kid's sensory input, the kid could be
seduced into becoming simply the way that the computer
walks around and does things.
And then there's the group side, as well. I
envisioned and lectured on kids playing D&D in empty
lots in the ghetto. Except that, to the enhanced kids,
they would be in a real D&D universe, with dragons and
castles, etc. The Nokia instant text messaging
service was used a few years back by the kids in
Finland to play extended group fantasy games
encompassing entire real cities. This was just text
on a cellphone screen.
Ironically, the SCA people would probably go crazy
with this so-very-not-medieval tek.
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