[extropy-chat] Fools building AIs - A New Take

[Samantha Atkins]

On Oct 9, 2006, at 5:09 AM, Ben Goertzel wrote:
> I still believe my friend, under discussion here, is a clear thinker
> and simply has a goal system that doesn't place extremely high value
> on the perpetuation of the human race.  I see nothing inconsistent nor
> surprising here.  Human nature is diverse in spite of its common
> evolutionary underpinnings.
>

  It seems to me that the majority of the people here actually do want  
the human race to be replaced by something superior.  Most want that  
superior something to have continuity with existing humans, especially  
themselves through augmentation, uploading and such.  But those future  
ex-humans will not be human in body,  are unlikely to keep human  
emotions as we know them, will have eschewed most human limits, will  
think perhaps millions of times faster and will most likely think and  
exist so radically differently as to be a completely different type of  
being.  I dare say that most of us are rather in a hurry to go beyond  
the current rather sorry human state no matter how much we may enjoy  
parts of it along the way.

If this so then the argument boils down to whether humans as we know  
them go away by choice and whether they get transformed into something  
better or are simply replaced.

- samantha