[ExI] far future

[Anders Sandberg]

On 2013-12-30 17:57, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
> Far future - year 50,000 a.d. There is no economy - everything is 
> free.  Robots do everything except think.

Why are they not thinking? At least some people would want to make 
superintelligent robots, if only as art projects or to see if they can.

Is there really no scarcity? After all, not everybody can have a 
beachfront villa at a particular nice spot or the original Mona Lisa 
with all its historical weight. Having material needs fixed does not 
obviate desires for status, uniqueness or just sheer idiosyncrasy. Iain 
M. Banks had a near-total post-scarcity society largely because the 
Minds made creative power post-scarcity, and there was essentially 
infinite space to expand in.

> No politics - democratic socialism - takes 95% approval for any 
> genetic changes.

So there is politics: one group likes change X and will try to convince 
enough about it. Maybe it is a very nice rational process, but it is 
politics.

>  I don't know what to make of enhancing smell.  Do we really want to 
> smell like a dog?
I want to be able to smell like a chromatograph, sequencing the genomes 
in the local atmosphere and detecting what isotopes and cosmic rays are 
present.

>   Improving humans by implants etc. has been left way behind.  Not 
> considered natural.

You are implicitly assuming a very homogeneous society. And why would 
"natural" have any value, or correspond to anything we consider natural? 
In most societies we arrest people who walk around naked, despite them 
being more "natural". In 17th century Europe the Alps were considered 
ugly since they were wild and natural. Why not regard technosomes as 
beautiful as a rolling British countyside, or the intricate hyperlinks 
of a nanoenhanced brain as traditional and majestic as Venice?

> So, everyone is a genius of all sorts.  All medical and psychological 
> problems related to genes have been eliminated.  Personalities are 
> sunny in disposition, eager to work, devoid of any competitive 
> impulses, unable to even think of hurting another person, and so on.

Note that eager, moral persons are able to create tremendous trouble.

Just imagine a bunch of people who set out to solve the problem of pain 
and suffering across the entire universe according to negative 
utilitarianism a la the Hedonistic Imperative. Or some total 
utilitarians seeking to maximize the potential of the universe by 
converting as much mass as possible into hedonistic computronium. Or the 
super-smart Kantians who think the others are profoundly, disturbingly 
wrong and threatening Value itself.

-- 
Dr Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University