[ExI] hard science

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 9:39 AM, Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> wrote:

>
>  On May 7, 2014, at 1:48 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I would not be surprised if the most common human-level intelligences in
> the substrate were athymhormic - deficient in motivation. Athymhormia
> occurs in humans with damage to the frontal cortex, who do not lose their
> intelligence and can be directed to act but do not act on their own. A
> single motivated mastermind could command a legion of athymhormic drones to
> frictionlessly cooperate and achieve greatness.
>
>
>  I'd be very surprised if these people today who have this damage
> function could effectively in most jobs in large organizations. We usually
> give abstract and high level instructions and rely on worker motivation and
> initiative to fill in the details. Often we just hint at our instructions,
> as we'd be in trouble for stating them explicitly.
>

### Well, yes, naturally occurring athymhormics are usually completely
incapable of holding a job but you have to remember that they are the
result of a crude insult to the brain, usually a tumor or a stroke.
Athymhormic minds in the cloud would be the result of careful modification
of the general human motivational pattern. It is believed that athymhormia
is caused by interruption of the connections between the basal ganglia
(nucleus accumbens, olfactory tubercle, striatum) and the prefrontal
cortex. The precise pattern of connections between these centers determines
many aspects of our motivation, and brutally smashing them removes it - but
a judicious rewiring could perhaps disconnect various self-preservation
motives (the near-mode) while preserving and externally controlling the
non-self-oriented far mode.

Rafal
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