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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Well of course, the whole star wars saga is full of
them. Of course, people can be had as slaves as well. </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=marc.geddes@gmail.com href="mailto:marc.geddes@gmail.com">Marc
Geddes</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org
href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, December 29, 2005 12:05
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [extropy-chat] MP3000s</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>>Best of the season to all. Hiding downstairs from the upstairs
festivities,<BR>I've finished a draft of a short paper I am working on dealing
with the<BR>question of whether we can own or otherwise dictate the life
trajectories of <BR>human-level intelligent robots. I would be interested if
anyone has examples<BR>from fiction or non-fiction where it is assumed that it
is morally<BR>permissible to own human-level robots. An example that came to
me this <BR>morning (and made me smile) was "Rosie" from the Jetsons. Rosie is
purchased<BR>as a slightly used robot but she is sensitive enough to try and
leave the<BR>Jetsons when she believes that she has caused the Jetsons
problems. Poor <BR>Rosie, she is a
slave.<BR><BR>Cheers,<BR><BR>Mark<BR> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Best AI's in science-fiction I've ever seen were the AI's in the 'Blake's
7' TV series:</DIV>
<DIV><A
href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076987/">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076987/</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I loved that series. Laughable special effects, but great
script, great plots, great characters and best depiction of AI's in
sci-fi. Might be worth you getting the videos if you aren't familiar
with the series and want a look. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The AI's that featured were called ORAC, ZEN and SLAVE. After
watching the episodes when I was 12 or so I remember trying to create an AI on
my ZX Spectrum (48k RAM and a sound cassette for data storage!).
Yudkowsky and Wilson would both have been in nappies then ;) </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>---</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Of course the question of whether it's ethical to own human-level
intelligent robots probably only boils down to whether they're sentient or
not. I don't know whether it's possible to have non-sentient human level
intelligence but I guess it is. (Of course - self-improving
intelligence is another matter - again I don't know - but my guess would be
that non-sentient AI's can't self-improve - they'd be stuck at the same
intelligence level - I guess that Qualia are neccesserily generated by the
growth and integration of novel knowledge). </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><BR><BR><A
href="http://www.permanentend.org/Walker/mp3000.html">wwwpermanentend.org/Walker/mp3000.html</A><BR><BR>Dr.
Mark Walker<BR>Departme= nt of Philosophy<BR>University Hall 310<BR>McMaster
University<BR>1280 Main Street West <BR>Hamilton, Ontario, L8S
4K1<BR>Canada<BR><BR><BR clear=all><BR>-- <BR>"Till shade is gone, till water
is gone, into the shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last
breath, to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the last day" </DIV>
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