From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sun Jun 16 2002 - 16:15:53 MDT
om> <3D0B1A1B.4010700@objectent.com>
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Samantha Atkins wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >
> >
> > What you said was:
> >
> > "It is not the violence itself that turns me off so much as the
> > gratuitous indulgence in violence and abhorrent attitudes that
> > many of the players would never display or want any part of in
> > real life. It is all so one-sided. One can engage in rage and
> > murder endlessly with no risk to oneself and often not even much
> > real gore from the act to give one a moment's pause."
>
> This says it is the psychological state of the players, not an
> asumption of real hurt to the bits on the screen that most
> bothers me. Exactly what is not obvious about that?
Because you are communicating YOUR emotional state, not the players, and
not the AI characters on the screen.
>
> >
> > You have also said: "Personally I have never found "virtual space"
> > violence any more palatable than the physical space variety. I abhor
> > both."
> >
>
> Again, primarily from the point of view of the indulgence in
> these emotions as "entertainment" and the state exhibited by
> the players. Where is your point?
You were expressing an emotional response on your part to simulated
violence.
>
> >>My take is that all sentient beings have some level of rights
> >>and thus ethical constraints on how they may be treated by
> >>virtue of being sentient beings. It does not matter on what
> >>sort of strata they are implemented.
> >>
> >
> > Why? A virtual being on a substrata has no more real existence here than
> > we would on a higher meta level. If our world is a simulation, then it
> > is rather obvious that the ethics of our creators are that our lives are
> > of no real consequence to them, other than as 'soul' points in some
> > cosmic game. We are no more 'real' to them than the average street
> > mutant is to a Duke Nukem player.
> >
>
> If you believe that then I certainly don't want you to have the
> keys to the computational matrix housing perhaps billions of
> sentients a bit down the line. If the beings are as sentient as
> you and I and as capable of experiencing pain, fear and so on
> then treating them brutally is exactly equivalent to treating
> beings on your own strata brutally. If such a level is not
> "real" then neither is this one and neither are you. If we
> discovered that we are in fact within a VR running at a
> different level will you personally believe you don't really
> exist or will you be just as real as ever?
I am certainly real *to me*. I am willing to entertain the high
probability that you are real *to me* also based on your similarity to
me. Lara Croft, while bearing a high resemblance to the female form, and
moving, communicating, and functioning in her virtual universe much like
a human being, I do not accept as real for the simple reasons that a)
she can't exist in the material world, and b) she doesn't learn, doesn't
grow, and can't reprogram herself, as well as c) any woman with a breast
larger than her braincase either has a fake breast or a fake brain (or
both).
>
> >
> >>>Lets say, for example, that I develop a simulation game for people
> >>>called Slavemaster(tm), where the player can live out a simulated life
> >>>on the computer as the master of slaves on a plantation, in a factory or
> >>>dungeon or mine, or bordello. The player can select the characteristics
> >>>of their slaves, including skin color. Black players could make a world
> >>>where whitey was enslaved, Chinese can have Japanese slaves, and Scots
> >>>can have English serf maids to deflower as they wish.
> >>>
> >>>In no way do I, or any player actually wish to life that life in
> >>>reality, and abor enslaving real people. Is this wrong? Why?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>If your slaves are sentient, feeling entities then it is wrong
> >>to enslave them just as in the strata we normal think of as real.
> >>
> >
> > Characters is a work of fiction are sentient within the construct of the
> > plot and setting. That does not make them real in our universe. Authors
> > are under no obligation to treat their characters kindly.
> >
>
> If you create real beings, which we talk about doing all the
> time here, then there is no way that it is ok to abuse them just
> because you created them.
Once again you fail in your logic by already assuming a being is real.
As I said, *within the confines of a virtual universe*, any AI is
absolutely as real, and no more real, than a character in a novel.
> Look at it like this. If you create
> a sentient biological creature in this world I think you would
> agree that it is wrong to abuse it. How does it become right
> just because you create your sentient living creatures within a
> VR? If it does become right there then when some of us upload
> is it alright for the non-uploads to consider us simply
> simulations of people who did themselves in in a most strange
> fashion and enslave us or simply terminate us? If not then why
> is it ok if the being within the computational matrix never had
> a biological life? There seems to be a bit of a double standard
> and contradiction here to say the least.
There is, but you have yet to understand it, at least so far as you've
communicated here.
> > >>
> >
> > What studies, pray tell, are these? I have seen some, and they are all
> > nothing but unscientific case studies of specific criminals. Purely
> > anecdotal evidence with no statistical comparison or causal correlation.
> >
>
> If I have time I will dig them up. What studies do you have
> that prove the opposite any better btw?
I don't need studies. The common cultural wisdom is that 'getting it out
of your system' is the best medicine. Since that is the default state, I
need not prove it any more than you need an equation to prove that an
apple falls. Your position is the absurd one, and therefore is the one
that needs scientific support.
> >>
> >
> > But SMBD activities are causing real pain to real people, yet you claim
> > that these activities are 'acceptable' but completely unreal virtual
> > violence is not?
> >
>
> The are consensual arrangements for very defined purposes. That
> is a lot different from saying you can abuse and even kill other
> sentients without their consent if they happen to be implemented
> on a different strata.
Ah, but for my need to play a round of shoot-em-up, they would have no
existence at all. Are you arguing that whole universes should never come
to existence if the only reason their creators create them is to play a
bit of smack down with entities which would otherwise have never had any
existence? Furthermore, how do you KNOW that those entities *aren't*
consenting? If they were programmed by us to engage in violent
activities, then violence is certainly a part of their nature.
Additionally, what is your litmus test for 'realness' in virtual people?
Isn't one condition of sentience is the ability to comprehend the idea
of consent, to begin with?
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