Illegal to "Kill" Robots?

[seeker_two]

Your dog is Sentient. It perceives the world, and has feelings about what it perceives. However, if you did careful psychological tests on your dog to determine it's ability to plan, hold abstract thoughts, count, or hold visions of itself and others, and plan for the future or predict outcomes, you might find that it's sapience is rather limited as compared to a gorilla, a dolphin, or a human.

Plus it would have a lot of trouble holding the pencil....

[K Frame]

And yet, I still like my dog a LOT more than any of you...

And, he's a better conversationalist.

[RaspberrySurprise]

And yet, I still like my dog a LOT more than any of you...

And, he's a better conversationalist.

Always so loving, good sir.

[seeker_two]

And yet, I still like my dog a LOT more than any of you...

And, he's a better conversationalist.

Agreed....most dogs make better people than most people....

BTW, if given the opportunity, would you rather have an AI/robot version of Ruger or a clone of Ruger?.....

(I'm still trying to decide. Bonnie, the dog in my avatar, died just before Thanksgiving. This thread just made me think of this question....I'm leaning more toward the clone, though...I miss the snugglyness...)

[AJ Dual]

Actually no, it's not circular at all, it is supported by sufficient evidence.  But do you really want to sidetrack the discussion with that debate? 

Indeed. You then get into circular arguments about the nature and veracity of the evidence, or what either side even accepts as evidence within the debate. No good comes of that.

TEH ROBOTZ ARE GONNA KILL UZ ALL!/I WANNA FEMBOT WITH THE DD-CHESTY OPTION, BUT MRS. [MYSCREENNAME] WON'T LET ME, HAR HAR!  Is much more fun!  

I guess my arguments come down to this:

I believe AI is possible. And I don't think humans have to know exactly how to make an AI either. We already have examples of using computer software to grow and evolve devices and solutions to problems on their own. Eventually someone will try growing pieces of AI, then get the pieces working together to keep improving themselves until the system is self aware. Or it will be such a thorough replication of self-awareness and sentience/sapience that philosophical discussion about if it's "alive" or not become moot, either through the actions of the AI, or just time and social acceptance.

The other is that we really don't have the tools to conceive what it would be like to be AI, unless we work very hard to make it a replica of human consciousness. A consciousness that we ourselves don't understand. We are too hemmed in our own biological and human biases to predict how the AI will perceive the very fundamental assumptions about competition, individuality, and mortality. Assumptions that are so fundamental to what it means to be human that we don't realize how they form the foundation almost all of our thoughts and perceptions.

[gunsmith]

woah AJ!

Are you a sci-fi writer or reader of sufism or Tolle or all 3?

If not you could make a buck mixing them!

You know, reading what you've written makes me wonder if you aren't our resident AI
superwriter from a mysterious dimension!

[K Frame]

"BTW, if given the opportunity, would you rather have an AI/robot version of Ruger or a clone of Ruger?....."

Absolutely 100% NEITHER.

Ruger was a unique creation.

To attempt to duplicate her as an artificial entity would diminish who, and what, she was.

To attempt to copy her would be to create a ghosted image with none of the substance of her.

For whatever reason, I was blessed to have her as my pet, companion, and friend for a little over 10 years. There's not a day that goes by that I don't grieve that she's no longer with me. It's been almost two years since I lost her, and yet the pain is still raw and jagged and fresh.

But I'd rather live with that pain and that loss than with the knowledge that I tried to copy her, and with the guilt of knowing that I diminished her.

[Perd Hapley]

Nothing will start a religious war like the creation of AI will.  The successful creation of an AI will call into question the fundamental belief system of which most subscribe.  I don't think that will be pretty to see. 

Could you explain why?  What is this "fundamental belief system of which most subscribe," and how would AI cast doubt upon it?

I don't see why AI would be any different from issues like abortion, homosexuality, marriage, etc.  People try to paint these as issues that only religious people have trouble with, for purely religious reasons.  But that is just myth.  Just like the three aforementioned issues, religious and non-religious people would be on both sides, and there would be very little violence, just lots of maneuvering in the courtrooms and legislatures.   

[K Frame]

I'm still of the opinion that we are FAR from creating natural intelligence in the human race, so we shouldn't get bent up over artificial intelligence.

[MicroBalrog]

People try to paint these as issues that only religious people have trouble with, for purely religious reasons.  But that is just myth.

I don't think anybody literally believes that only religious people have trouble with these issues. However, I bet that a piously religious person would be statistically more likely to be actively opposed to gay marriage or to abortion than vice versa.

[AJ Dual]

I'm still of the opinion that we are FAR from creating natural intelligence in the human race, so we shouldn't get bent up over artificial intelligence.

That may be exactly why the human race needs AI.

Aside from environmental factors, like nutrition, and avoidance of common diseases through sanitation, I doubt the average human IQ is any higher than it was 10,000 years ago. Perhaps due to the crutch effect of technology (agriculture = a higher % of the stupid live and procreate) it's quite likely it's actually lower.

We know more, and we can build on past experience, but we are not any smarter, and more importantly, I don't think we're any wiser. And as our tools and technology get better and better and more and more destructive, time might be running out. And if you look at the people who are supposedly trying to "save" us, peace activists, liberals, environmentalists and most all of their various hairy ilk, it's plain as day they're every bit as angry, self-centered, and venal as those they purport to oppose, arguably even more so.

Perhaps building something that's smarter and wiser than we are is the only way we're going to save ourselves.

And if the AI does turn out to be malevolent, or simply indifferent and it obsoletes humanity, well... (shrug) then we were probably going to destroy ourselves anyway. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, political/economic or even the periodic mega-natural disasters such as asteroids, comets, or supervolcanisim, or perhaps just major natural climate change will do us in.

Even if it's "bad" AI that replaces us, I can't help but wonder if that isn't still better than humanity having nothing to show for itself a million years from now.

[gunsmith]

Even if it's "bad" AI that replaces us, I can't help but wonder if that isn't still better than humanity having nothing to show for itself a million years from now.

Its far, far to late to worry about humans legacy in the history of infinity.
There are endless renditions of "Disco Duck" and "American Idol"
out there for eternity, among intelligent space faring beings, I doubt that they have a high opinion of human culture.

[AJ Dual]

Its far, far to late to worry about humans legacy in the history of infinity.
There are endless renditions of "Disco Duck" and "American Idol"
out there for eternity, among intelligent space faring beings, I doubt that they have a high opinion of human culture.

The radio leakage is pretty sporadic, and is forever weakening at the rate of the inverse square law all EM frequencies follow. And most of the frequencies aren't optimal for interstellar communication. Even a supercivilization that builds radio telescope farms the size of entire solar systems (you can improve resolution with very long baseline Interferometry, but not total signal strength collected) would only know that the carrier wave was artificial, and even someone like that would only detect us at a few thousand light-years.  And of course that "bubble" of space is a pretty small sample of star systems even just within our own galaxy to find another species doing their own SETI.

And all the old analog transmissions would suffer horrid distortion, band smearing etc. And of course the aliens would have to understand the cultural context to know it was something schlocky. 

It's almost more sad than the fossils, or the artifacts in stable orbits or on the Moon that we'll leave behind. After a few thousand light years, which isn't much against our own galaxy, the radio just fades into the background noise. 

It's my personal gut-level suspicion that the sky is "silent" because intelligent technology using species either go extinct due to environmental factors before they can get all of their eggs out of one basket, or they destroy themselves. And the ones that "make it" are transformed beyond any meaningful communication by exponential technological progress, also known as a technological singularity, of which AI or AI-like technologies such as IA (Intelligence Augmentation) probably plays a big role.

I suspect there's lots of the equivalent of "apes", or dead-ends like "Dolphins" (no hands, no tools etc...) out there, and also perhaps a fair amount of very advanced and very abstract intelligences like the inscrutable monoliths from 2001, but almost nothing in between. Races like us are not even a flash in the pan, we are not even a flicker against geological timescales, much less stellar ones. Someone that progresses to have a "Star Trek" like period in their history of interstellar colonization would be such an oddity, it may not have happened even more than once or twice in the history of the Universe, and odds are it never happened in our galaxy.

[CNYCacher]

I will bet you a shiney AR15 or AK47 clone of your choice that the first AI will be accidently created or evolve out of something not intended to be intelligent.  I'm leaning towards evolving over accident.. 

Can I take that bet?

[seeker_two]

I'm still of the opinion that we are FAR from creating natural intelligence in the human race, so we shouldn't get bent up over artificial intelligence.

Truer words have never been spoken....

[roo_ster]

And there we reach the endpoint of our debate.

Implicit in that is that the bible is divine canon. And that in absence of any empirical evidence for it to be so, is the circular answer of faith.

This is usually fistful's hobbyhorse, but faith is not an evidence-free process/concept.

[Perd Hapley]

I don't think anybody literally believes that only religious people have trouble with these issues.  However, I bet that a piously religious person would be statistically more likely to be actively opposed to gay marriage or to abortion than vice versa.

I'm not sure if either of those assertions are true, but they're both beside the point.  Which is:
a) Neither AI or the issues I mentioned are especially religious issues.
b) The other issues haven't led to war; neither will AI issues. 


jfruser, try to keep up, you slacker.  I already rode that hobby horse.    But it occurs to me that AJ is not so devoted to evidence himself.  He sounds oddly convinced of his speculations, even though he's discussing things that may never have existed, may never exist in the future.  That is, AI, the extinction of a sapient race, any non-terran life form.  At least I don't remember hearing about any life being found, yet.  But it's funny how the media was reporting things from Mars a few years ago.  "Evidence that there may have been water on Mars - ERGO, THERE MUST HAVE BEEN LIFE ON MARS!!" 

[RevDisk]

Can I take that bet?

Done.  And no, it can't be a "One of a Kind super-ueber-rare Custom" gold plated, diamond studded AR15 or AK47.  It will be plain, but highly functional AR15, AK47 or equivilent of my choice.  But it will be shiney.  When I win the bet, I expect you to buy me a very decent import or microbrewery beer as to be gratious in defeat.

I'm aware of semi-current AI research.  Go and ask any computer geek scientist to define "intelligence" in a mathematical construct.  No one has yet to have done so.  Not by a long shot.  When we can accurately define intelligence, we can create intelligence.  It will be a while.

Even if it's "bad" AI that replaces us, I can't help but wonder if that isn't still better than humanity having nothing to show for itself a million years from now.

It'd be worth it to see the look on some poor alien's face when billions of evil AI robots come pouring out of the stars, screaming "A parting gift from the humans of Terra".   

[AZRedhawk44]

It'd be worth it to see the look on some poor alien's face when billions of evil AI robots come pouring out of the stars, screaming "A parting gift from the humans of Terra".

Is somebody leaking the series finale from Battlestar Galactica?

[makattak]

Done.  And no, it can't be a "One of a Kind super-ueber-rare Custom" gold plated, diamond studded AR15 or AK47.  It will be plain, but highly functional AR15, AK47 or equivilent of my choice.  But it will be shiney.  When I win the bet, I expect you to buy me a very decent import or microbrewery beer as to be gratious in defeat.

I'm aware of semi-current AI research.  Go and ask any computer geek scientist to define "intelligence" in a mathematical construct.  No one has yet to have done so.  Not by a long shot.  When we can accurately define intelligence, we can create intelligence.  It will be a while.


It'd be worth it to see the look on some poor alien's face when billions of evil AI robots come pouring out of the stars, screaming "A parting gift from the humans of Terra".   

I'd love to take that bet, but unfortunately, I can't collect on a bet that something will never happen.

I can only lose that bet....

[Werewolf]

sapience

noun
ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense and insight 

... The most lenient of the definitions of sapience to be found here: Sapient

The other definitions are way more harsh along these lines:

sa⋅pi⋅ent   /ˈseɪpiənt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation  [sey-pee-uhnt] Show IPA Pronunciation 

–adjective having or showing great wisdom or sound judgment.

Based on either - it seems that many of you in this thread would of necessity have to deny basic human rights to most of humanity since most of humanity fails to meet the qualifications of either definition.

[Strings]

>Based on either - it seems that many of you in this thread would of necessity have to deny basic human rights to most of humanity since most of humanity fails to meet the qualifications of either definition.<

No... not most of humanity. But that werewolf guy...

[BridgeRunner]

>Based on either - it seems that many of you in this thread would of necessity have to deny basic human rights to most of humanity since most of humanity fails to meet the qualifications of either definition.<

Ha!  human rights implications?  From some of the conversations around here, I think there may be significant marital implications.

Sorry for the detour, back to your regularly scheduled geeky robot conversation. 

[slugcatcher]

IF AI is ever created it will still be a program written by man. It's not a living entity. It's not part of the food chain. It's software. Nothing more. Nothing less. Giving software rights is beyond ridiculous.

[BridgeRunner]

It's not part of the food chain.

Wait, so you're defining humanity based on being part of the food chain?  I hate to think of my humanity being summed up in my ability to be eaten by a grizzly bear.  Kinda' puts me on par with trout, ya know?