[extropy-chat] In the Long Run, How Much Does Intelligence Dominate Space?

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jul 6, 2006, at 8:25 PM, Lee Corbin wrote:

> Robin writes
>
>> [Lee wrote]
>>>>> Russell and I take the "good housekeeping" view, if I might
>>>>> phrase it that way, that a powerful intelligence keeps her
>>>>> area as clean as a Dutch housewife does hers.
>>> Example two: In modern hi-tech clean near but not absolute success
>>> is achieved. Did you have this example in mind also when you made
>>> your statement?  An AI may be able to keep its mind as "clean" as
>>> this.
>>
>> In these examples, the question is how valuable is it to coordinate
>> on this scale to keep this area clean of this type of "dirt."  Even
>> if a household is run by several people, they may coordinate to keep
>> out "dust", but not neutrinos or inaccurate political ideology.
>
> There are two reasons I can think of that an AI may wish to keep
> its area clean: one is selfish, one is moral.
>
> The selfish reason is that it probably will see no reason to allow
> compute resources to be squandered on vastly inferior processes.
> It has its own reasons to calculate, its own curiosity, its own
> redesign of itself. Why permit resources to be wasted on anything
> else?

No appreciation of variety or of the benefits of diversity eh?   If  
it has enough power to grab all "compute resources" then it certainly  
should do so, eh?   The strong take all and the weak go wanting and  
yet..

>
> The second reason is moral: we today *should* not permit natural
> processes---had we only the power to stop it---such as big fish
> eating small fish ad infinitum), especially when the cruelty
> inflicted on sentient prey, such as is inflicted on gazelles by
> lions, is avoidable. Only our romanticized fancies prevent us
> from properly perceiving and appreciating the horrors. Evidently
> people would need to live a few days as a rabbit or field mouse
> to properly understand.
>


What?  Aren't you one of the folks that beat the no objective  
morality drum?  If so isn't it a tad inconsistent to talk of natural  
predator-prey relationships as "cruel" and something we should strive  
to prevent?   I imagine we will have a lot better things to do.

- samantha