[ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.

[John K Clark]

"A B" <austriaaugust at yahoo.com>

> If I were an organism that didn't already have consciousness,
> how exactly am I going to feel emotions when I can't be
> conscious of *anything*?

I don't know what you're talking about; if something has emotions it's
conscious, if it's conscious it has emotions.

> why would biological evolution spend
> millions/billions of years blindly refining a huge
> volume of the animal brain, if those organs provided
> *zero* advantages in terms of survival or reproduction

You're asking me that question??!! That was exactly my point!

> Evolution won't retain and perfect an  attribute that provides no
> survival  or reproductive advantage.

And again that is something I have been saying over and over again to this
list for over a decade. If consciousness is not required for intelligent
behavior why in the name of all that's holy did Evolution invent it?

>Your *claim* that early brains looked like  a *portion* of our human
> emotional subsystem doesn't  prove or even  indicate that the first
> brains to evolve  had tons of emotions and zero  intelligence

The most ancient parts of our brain provide us with tons of emotions but
none of the higher brain functions we are so proud of. The very first brains
that appeared hundreds of millions of years ago looked very much like the
most ancient parts of our brains; I'd say that's a pretty damn good
indication those animals were emotional but not very smart.

 > I do think that the program [a chess program that can't change its own
> programming] acts intelligently.

I disagree, but if you really believe that then how can you say with such
confidence that it is not conscious?

Me:
 >>"I don't see what Adjusted Gross Income has to do
 >> with anything."

You:
> I don't see why your changing the subject, when we
> all know exactly what I was referring to.

I do now but it took a while. When I first ran across "AGI" on this list I
Googled it and found "The American Geological Institute" and "Adjusted Gross
Income", a graphics company, and some institute that was interested in sex;
I could find nothing about Artificial Intelligence. When too many people
start to understand a jargon (like AI) there is a tendency in many to change
it to something less comprehensible, particularly if your ideas are
confused, contradictory or just plain silly because then what you say sounds
deep even when it is not. That's why psychology is so dense with unnecessary
jargon while mathematics prefers the simplest words they can find, like
continuous, limit, open, and closed.

> I've seen you yourself write posts using that exact same abbreviation.

Show me. Come on show me!

> You have repeatedly suggested that I (and others) am a slave-driver

That would be too harsh, a wannabe benevolent slave owner would be more
accurate, but since enslaving an AI is imposable that wish has no moral
dimension.

> I don't hate you

Thanks, I don't hate you either; in fact I can honestly say the thought of
doing so never entered my head.

 > you are a selfish coward... you are resorting to sordid  strategies . ...
> You seem to have a fundamental bitterness or resentfulness of humanity.
> ..  you eventually expect some sort of special treatment or reward 
> thereby.

If I had said the same to you I know from personal experience at this very
instant the list would be clogged with messages all evoking a very silly and
pompous Latin phrase and all demanding that I be kicked off the list. But I
don't demand anything of the sort; I'm a big boy and have been called worse.

  John K Clark