[ExI] "Animal-monitoring modules"?

[Jef Allbright]

On 9/28/07, hkhenson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:

> Now I *agree* that it would be better to be sensitive to intentional
> agents, rather than animals because one of these days we might well
> have vehicles that drive themselves with intention.  But they just
> didn't exist in the EEA.

Now it's clear that our disconnect has been at least partially due to
terminology.  "Intentional agents" denotes a general class of entities
capable of acting to some extent in their own interest.  This easily
includes humans, animals, "the Wind God", self-aware robots, etc., but
clearly excludes minivans.

My point was that perceived intentionality has significantly more
functional involvement with human evolutionary adaptations than does
the subset, perceived membership in the class of "animals".

I'd guess you thought I was somehow referring to machine intelligence,
but that doesn't seem to fit well at all with the surrounding context.
 ???

- Jef