[ExI] Genuine Altruism in Animals? (was How could you ever support an AGI?)

[Lee Corbin]

Giovanni writes

> not true also that tigers are not altruistic (what about mother tigers adopting
> pigs recently in the news)... in general animals can express altruism of some
> kind...

Thanks for the correction.  I was sloppy.  I was thinking of other
debates where I stood up for humans having "genuine altruism",
that is, altruism from which they neither expect reciprocation nor
which benefits their genes. 

That's odd about the tigers adopting pigs. Maybe "genuine altruism"
can be extended there too, even if it happens that the mother instinct
of these tigers simply overpowered their normal behavior.

I agree with 

> and in particular the general trend is more intelligent the animal more
> altruistic it is .... ants are very social but they cannot extend their social
> rules to other beings not belonging to their species... a dog can do that
> in fact it has no problem to extend its social rules to human beings

except that it has been bred expressly to do so (which was not too
hard starting from wolves, which are pack animals)

Lee

> and consider us one of the pack.... [Yes] apes can do also do that
> and even express higher feelings, share language and comunication with us....

P.S.
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