From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Nov 17 1997 - 02:29:40 MST
Twink <neptune@mars.superlink.net> writes:
> Insane, because they think it might akin to putting a human in a non-
> human body. Imagine putting your mind in the body of a weasel. Sure,
> it might be nice for a romp in the park, has potential if you want to
> solve your rodent problem in an exciting way, but the limitations!
A very strange position, since uplifting very likely would involve
overcoming the physical limitations too (e.g. Brin's ideas for bionic
manipulators for dolphins) and the fact that the uplifted creature
would likely regard its body as perfectly natural.
> Next, uplifted dogs, to stick with my example, would also be good for
> lots of things that might be done by humans but that a dog's abilities
> are better at (e.g., guarding property), but which current robots are
> not yet up to.
Of course, an uplifted species would have rights too, so your
intelligent guard dogs would want pay and maybe form unions
(packs?). I think unintelligent animals might do plenty of jobs better
in many ways than intelligent animals; you other two arguments are
IMHO more compelling reasons for uplifting than getting certain forms
of labor.
> Third, the gains for the culture/memescape might be great. We get
> the bonus of an added perspective. This is almost like using genetic
> algorithmns to design bridges as opposed to human engineering. The
> dog perspective on the world will help up to expand the limits of ours.
I think this is a very good point.
Then there is the technical aspect of uplifting: how do we do it? I
have been thinking about the cruicial role of language in
bootstrapping intelligence; maybe the addition of a more advanced
language system to an uplift species would be a good start?
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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