[ExI] Unfrendly AI is a mistaken idea.

[Samantha Atkins]

On May 28, 2007, at 8:52 PM, Russell Wallace wrote:

> On 5/29/07, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
>
> This line of reasoning has considerable dark side potential.  We  
> can and do go beyond our EP in at least some ways.  If we truly  
> could not do so then we would always be untrustworthy cosmic  
> rednecks no matter how augmented we someday become.    We would  
> also find it impossible to overcome our EP even if it was a matter  
> of our very survival which I think in some ways it is.
>
> Mmm, but is "overcome" the right way to come at it? I'm inclined to  
> look at it as a matter of emphasizing some aspects of EP over others.

We generally don't behave as our simian cousins do in a lot of  
particulars.  Yes we sublimate, repress, transfer, translate and so  
on to a considerable degree.  We use our minds to think through  
consequences and decide how we should or can afford to behave and  
modify our behavior to at least some extent.  If we cannot do this  
and do it much more than to date then our situation is quite dire as  
the world ever more rapidly is not what our EP was designed to cope  
with.   We ourselves hope to be quite different that what we were  
evolved to be.

> I mean, we have the instinct "hate and kill other people [to get  
> rid of competition and threats or potential threats]", sure, and  
> that's one we understand needs to be kept on a tight rein. But we  
> also, fortunately, have the instincts "deal fairly with other  
> people [so they will reciprocate]" and "love and protect your own  
> [for they share your genes]". Why is the survival and welfare of  
> humanity my supergoal? It's not a theorem of ZFC. It's because I'm  
> relying on that third instinct, just generalizing the "your own"  
> part a bit to include my species rather than only my tribe.


That is perfectly fine.  However I think at some point we will need  
to not only adapt but actively change parts of our EP conditioning if  
we are to remain adaptive in a vastly more complex world.


- samantha


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20070528/07b2eb69/attachment.html>