From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Aug 29 2001 - 10:06:02 MDT
Charlie Stross wrote
> > 1. If globalisation is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity
> > rather than the interests of trans-national corporations.
> >
> > The assumption is that the interests of the trans-national
> > corporations are antithetical to those of humanity!
>
> Corporations are legal entities with many of the rights of human
> beings. They have their own interests and agendas which are distinct
> from those of the human beings who are members of them. (Corporate
> officers are charged with a duty of pursuing the interests of the
> corporation and can be fired or even sued if they let their own
> preferences get in the way.)
>
> One may argue that in this respect, this question applies equally to
> trans-human AIs. "If the singularity is inevitable, it should primarily
> serve humanity rather than the interests of non-human AIs." Discuss!
On a second reading, your question is quite interesting.
I don't yet know if I can support the analogy that you are making
or not.
First, we ordinarily suppose that the non-human AIs won't *have*
interests. I don't know if you saw the interesting piece by J.R.
"The Myth of the Monstrous Machine" and the nice piece by James
Martin that someone posted---all these during the last couple of
days. I don't have time to get into it now.
Lee
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