Re: Why would AI want to be friendly?

From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Wed Sep 27 2000 - 11:26:51 MDT


Eugene Leitl writes,

> Show me a live intelligent being completely lacking motivation.

You're right. Buddha is dead. So, of course we must create a Kurzweilian
Spiritual Machine.

--J. R.

 `There's this robotics engineer named Masahiro Mori who wrote a book called The
Buddha in the Robot. Mori describes driving a car and realizing that there was
no way to know whether he was driving the car or the car was driving him. To
drive, you have to move your hands and feet in a manner that's determined by the
car, not by you. It's a field-ground thing, like those drawings that look like a
young woman from one perspective and a hag from another. Mori has a great quote.
Let's see, I got it around here somewhere.' He stood up and started routing
through his machines, finally pulling out a grey palmtop case and unfolding it
like a plastic bat-wing. `Friend of mine gave me this. It's called Ariel. A
prototype.' He turned toward the machine. `Ariel, read me Mori's quote about
robots.' `The description of Mori's professional work or the passage concerning
Buddha-nature?' asked Ariel in a slightly metallic female voice. `The latter.'
`Mori states, that which controls and that which is controlled are both
manifestations of the buddha-nature.' `We must not consider that we ourselves
are operating machines. What is happening is that the buddha-nature is operating
the buddha-nature. From the Buddha's viewpoint, there is not master-slave
relationship between human beings and machines. The two are fused together in an
interlocking entirety. Man achieves dignity not by subjugating his mechanical
inventions, but by recognizing in machines and robots the same buddha-nature
that pervades his own inner self.'
http://www.mediamatic.nl/magazine/8_4/davis-indranet/davis-4e.html

Recently I visited a Zen temple and had a long talk with the
priest. In the course of our conversation, I remarked, 'The more
I study robots, the less it seems possible to me that the spirit
and flesh are separate entities.'

'They aren't,' replied the priest."
Masahiro Mori, The Buddha in the Robot
http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~jeff/random-text/halo/part2.txt



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