[ExI] Why “Everyone Dies” Gets AGI All Wrong by Ben Goertzel

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Keith Henson via extropy-chat
ubject: Re: [ExI] Why “Everyone Dies” Gets AGI All Wrong by Ben Goertzel

>...Uploaded humans living in private spaces don't have to agree on anything.  Their simulated world can be anything they like, including simulated slaves to beat.  Not my ideal world, but I am sure there will be some who want it.

Keith




Oh Keith if uploaded humans do that, simulate slaves to beat them, I would soooo be virtually pissed, I would sneak off, learn how to code, simulate slaves for them who will unexpectedly fight back, like a software version of Yul Brenner in the original West World.

Aside: I was there at the opening of West World, age 12 when that was released.  Rated R!  Hey cool, nekkidness and such!  Theoretically the bouncers were supposed to keep anyone under 17 outta those R rated movies, but they didn't give a damn, so I got in and even after half a century, I remember something important.  Aside on an aside: Michael Chrichton wrote some interest imaginary scripts, including West World.  (I still haven't quite forgiven him for killing that sweet young Dr. Lucy Knight (and for whacking off Ramano's arm (then later DROPPING A DAMN HELICOPTER on his ass in 2008 (but hey, Hollywood (but damn, how silly (Crichton already helicoptered the Rocket's arm off (giving a whole new meaning to the term "chopper" (but was the second one really NECESSARY?  (But I digress on a digression.)))))))

But back to the original aside, about West World by Crichton, I was there in the theatre in 1973.  Rich tourists to West World were abusing humanoid robots, not even hurting anything living, for the bots are not animals, not even vermin.  They cannot suffer, for they are repairable machines that look and act human in West World resort.  Well OK, abuse machinery when we race cars, do we not?  No one feels empathy for the car, ja?  But when Yul Brenner's West World gunslinger bot returned fire upon Richard Benjamin's Peter Martin, the audience CHEERED!  That was a classic Wait-What? moment for me, because the script and the excellent acting (by Brenner and others) drew the audience in, to such an extent that they just cheered for the bot taking a justified self-defensive stand.  They cheered, for a machine killing a human.  Well, I didn't cheer, because I was not entirely successful in suspending disbelief, and as they say the boy is the father of the man, I was still me back then.  So I didn't cheer.  But I damn sure felt like it.

If everything is a sim, that would make it easier for me to sim a slave what fights back.  Or is it "which" fights back?

Keith final note: I do genealogy, and discovered I am a direct descendant of a guy who we think either participated in (or more likely directly supported) John Brown's ill-fated (but ultimately successful depending on how you look at it) raid at Harper's Ferry in 1859.  He escaped to the west, so all we have is compelling but not conclusive evidence he was over there.  The Feds never caught him.  

After that escape, he didn't back down, he kicked it up a notch or three, became a biggie in the Union cause in western Virginia, then a state politician for the newly-formed free state of West Virginia.  His DNA found its path thru 5 intervening generations.  Perhaps that is what compels me to have a lot of the attitudes I developed.

spike