[ExI] Uploads (was: Covid)

[William Flynn Wallace]

On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 8:32 PM Dave Sill via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 5:35 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> How could there be any competition among people?
>>
>
> Assuming competition is desired, devising and implementing the changes
> necessary to optimize oneself for a given task would likely be nontrivial
> and would take time, resources, money, etc., to implement. Just because
> you're in a simulation doesn't mean everything is magic: snap your fingers
> and BAM, you're the optimal cake baker or CPA or lawyer or whatever. For
> games, players could agree on various constraints in advance.
>
> If there were still jobs done by 'humans' then if they wanted someone to
>> do matrix algebra you'd just change your code to enable that ability.  Of
>> course the true computers would likely be doing that.
>>
>
> Yeah, that's not a good example. A better one would be creating a work of
> art: painting a picture, writing a song, writing a poem. Those are things
> that a few people do well and, so far, only people do well.
>
>
>> So are we envisioning a life of play while AIs run the planet?
>>
>
> Why not have people inside simulations run the planet, if they could do a
> better job than AIs? Or at least not fuck it up? But what's wrong with
> moving beyond the constant struggle to meet biological needs? If I could
> have chosen a life of leisure over a life of 40 hours/week struggling to
> keep the family going.
>
>
I think it will be hundreds of years before simulations catch up with
reality.  The brain is such an incredibly complex thing that just coding in
odors,touch,and so on cannot being to rival the experiences of biological
life.   I could see uploading if the body just becomes too great a burden
or is unfixable. You are assuming that AIs will be relied on to proved the
electricity for all these sim machines, eh?

>   I keep coming back to reproduction.  Evolution is a game
>> with reproduction as the goal.  How does that fit in with uploaded people?
>>
>
> It depends on the rules of the simulation. If individuals can change
> quickly, dramatically, and intentionally, what's the point of trying to
> implement something slow and random like natural selection?
>
> Depends on the assumptions.  If you assume that all births will be the
result of frozen ova and sperm, perhaps from people long dead, raised in
artificial wombs, you still can design the genetics of those children.
Then they will live a life of some duration before uploading.

> I can also see a role for psychologists and programmers.  They would help
>> the uploaded person decide on what he wanted to be and the programmers
>> would achieve that.  I just have not thought about this very much and so my
>> ideas are likely to be primitive.
>>
>
> I'd imagine there'd be a need for psychologists and programmers, though
> implementing changes would quickly become more like hiring a designer than
> hiring a coder. There'd likely be a marketplace of modifications and
> upgrades that have already been implemented. Like, you wouldn't hire a
> furniture maker, a rug weaver, a paint chemist, etc., to redo your living
> room today. You'd either pick those things out yourself or work with a
> professional interior designer who knows what's available, what would work
> well together, and what would meet your needs.
>
> As for nanobots, isn't it more likely to be manufactured viruses and
>> bacteria?
>>
>
> Is there a difference? I mean, those are biological nanobots.
>


> I like 'designer' as opposed to coder'- sculpting a new personality and
> /or body.  I assume some things will be irreversible - like getting shorter
>

Ideally we'd want to move past playing by the rules of biochemistry in
order to do non-biological things.

> I don't know what that means.  You want to do non-biological things to a
> biological body? bill w
>
> -Dave
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