[ExI] Slavery in the Future

[Lee Corbin]

Stefano writes

> Lee  wrote:
>>  The only important differences between my car and a
>>  slave is (a) the slave regrets its situation (b) the slave
>>  is conscious. If I create sub-programs that don't
>>  regret my control and who are conscious, then they're
>>  more like employees or collaborators. I will not call
>>  that slavery, unless you can persuade me that my car
>>  is properly speaking a slave.
> 
> Mmhhh. The problems with slavery do not stop with how it affects the
> slaves, but rather have also to do on how it affects the "masters'"
> economy, culture and civilisation in the medium and long term.

That's certainly true!  Slavery was perhaps the biggest cause 
of the fall of the Roman Empire. 

But in the *future* the "slaves" if there be any, will be like our
slaves today who drink gasoline and get buried in auto junkyards.
The problem, of course, is when you can create entities that
do tasks for you and which will terminate when the tasks are
done. It will be very nice of you to make them very cheerful,
or, as Keith says, to love what they do.

Lee