This is quite possible, but we don't really know it takes that long,
and new high tech might help speed things up.
>I see no reason to assume an AI, human-level or not, would be as
>intractable as most animals. (Apart from the non-existence problem
>right now.) You can perhaps imitate the neural structure of nice
>animals; you can have not built in nastiness in the first place; their
>structure can be directly modified to see what happens, rather than just
>breeding two animals with nice bloodlines and praying; and software AIs
>running on SuperHexium or CAM-arrays can be even more easily modified,
>or could be evolved at some speed.
Possibly. But this sounds a lot
like wishful thinking.
Curt Adams writes:
>Partly it's that we've tried and failed to replace humans with animals in the
>routine but abstract purposes we're discussing here (cleaning, caretaking,
>machine operation, etc.) We have a new possibility so we're giving it a go.
>It's worth a try.
I doubt if we've tried anywhere near as hard to domesticate smart primates
as we've spent on A.I. research.
Eric Watt Forste writes:
>If you want to talk about "domesticated primates" and the various
>social effects and ramifications this has, I recommend studying
>the history of human slavery.
>(Unless, that is, we take up Tony Csoka's excellent suggestion and
>begin discussing the economics of labor compensation for
>nonhuman primates... but that might become too speculative for any
>of us to be able to enjoyably suspend disbelief anymore.)
By "domestication" I meant getting the primates to understand and keep
the peace, so we needn't fear their presense. To trade instead of
steal, etc. I would very much want them to not be slaves, but to have
their own spaces, property, etc.
Robin D. Hanson hanson@hss.caltech.edu http://hss.caltech.edu/~hanson/