[ExI] The second step towards immortality

[Adrian Tymes]

On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Martin Sustrik <sustrik at 250bpm.com> wrote:

> Foundation model doesn't necessarily work, see the example in the
> article. In any case, foundation resembles being immortal via your
> children. You raise them and they preserve something of you into the
> future. Nice, but it's a rather diluted form of immortality.
>

What you propose is the same.


> The article proposes a way to impose your will directly, without human
> proxies to interpret your intentions.
>

It is technically possible to create fully automated foundations,
yes...until the circumstances evolve beyond the limits of the directives
you gave.  "Give 1 bitcoin to person X every year" stops working when
person X dies, can't be found, or otherwise has no means of accepting
bitcoins.  "Deposit 1 bitcoin into account X every year" only works until
account X goes away.

Much more complex than that will require humans until we have sentient
AI...and if we have that, in most cases it's theoretically possible to make
one that can pretend to be you well enough to convince the legal system, at
which point you have uploading.


> Bitcoin gets into the mix, because fiat money, given how the legal
> system works, cannot be owned after death.
>

Sure it can, by a legal entity you've set up.  Like, say, a foundation.


> The follow-up question, of course, is what algorithm is used to decide
> how to spend the money. I've deliberately avoided the question. You
> may think of uploading. You may think of modeling your personality
> using the existing corpus of social data. You may think of many
> different ways of doing it.
>

Actually, that's a critical part of the question and you miss many of the
shortcomings of your proposal by ignoring them.


> The point is that however you do it, the resulting entity will be able
> to affect the physical world on equal standing with people actually
> alive, rather than being just a curiosity to be exhibited in a museum.
>

Only as much as, say, a foundation can.  The foundation makes its own
decisions as best it can, though it may be confined by the algorithms,
directives, or whatever that its founder set up.
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