From: Paul Hughes (paul@i2.to)
Date: Tue Aug 03 1999 - 23:07:51 MDT
"Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" wrote:
> I'll bet that more people go after me with machine guns for being a
> (natural!) neurohack than will ever object to my efforts in AI. After
> all, an altered human is there, already existent, easy to see, easy to
> conceptualize, easy to fear, and easy to hate.
I'm not so sure about this. It will depend a lot on the what we mean by
altered. If there is a way to alter your brain with no visible change, then
nobody will notice unless your increased intelligence impels you to act publicly
in ways that might upset the status quo. In which case it will be hard to
distinguish you from the typical rabble-rousing genius or the streetwise
crackpot. And if you really do become that intelligent, then common sense should
tell you to keep your more controversial activities discrete.
If by altered, we mean visible changes, like a hard-wired chip attached to your
skull; this may get a small amount of attention. But it would be very easy to
tell the curious inquirer that it is nothing more than an electrical monitor your
neurologist is using to keep track of your epilepsy. Besides, wearable computing
devices are about to become very common anyway, so nobody will give you a second
glance in either case.
As far as experimenting on children, I'm not sure people will have a problem with
that either.. Most parents want their children to exceed themselves. Most often
when parents have the money, they are all too willing to send them to the best
private schools, music lessons, special tutors, etc. Remember the 80's craze of
the baby schools popping up claiming to turn your child into geniuses? Those
people have been making fortunes. Many of these genius schools have tried a wide
assortment of intelligence increasing techniques - including special diets,
drugs, brain machines, flotation tanks, psycho-physical therapy, hypnosis,
multiple-intelligence coursework, repeating tape-loop lessons while sleeping, you
name it. All of this with the parents full permission. Not to mention, if I
recall a Gallop poll showed that a surprising large percentage of parents would
be willing to enhance the genome of their offspring, if the technology was
available and reliable.
Paul Hughes
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:04:39 MST