[extropy-chat] MP3000s

[Marc Geddes]

>Best of the season to all. Hiding downstairs from the upstairs festivities,
I've finished a draft of a short paper I am working on dealing with the
question of whether we can own or otherwise dictate the life trajectories of
human-level intelligent robots. I would be interested if anyone has examples
from fiction or non-fiction where it is assumed that it is morally
permissible to own human-level robots. An example that came to me this
morning (and made me smile) was "Rosie" from the Jetsons. Rosie is purchased
as a slightly used robot but she is sensitive enough to try and leave the
Jetsons when she believes that she has caused the Jetsons problems. Poor
Rosie, she is a slave.

Cheers,

Mark


Best AI's in science-fiction I've ever seen were the AI's in the 'Blake's 7'
TV series:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076987/

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.

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 ;)

---

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).





www.permanentend.org/Walker/mp3000.html

Dr. Mark Walker
Department of Philosophy
University Hall 310
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West
Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4K1
Canada



--
"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"
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