[ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 45, Issue 20

[Thomas]

On Jun 17, 2007, at 1:02 AM, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org  
wrote:

> On 16/06/07, Thomas <thomas at thomasoliver.net> wrote:
>
> Building mutual appreciation among humans has been spotty, but making
> friends with SAI seems clearly prudent and might bring this ethic
> into proper focus.  Who dominates may not seem so relevant to beings
> who lack our brain stems.  The nearly universal ethic of treating the
> other guy like you'd prefer if you were in her shoes might get us off
> to a good start.  Perhaps, if early AI were programmed to treat us
> that way, we could finally learn that ethic species-wide --
> especially if they were programmed for human child rearing.  That
> strikes me as highly likely.  -- Thomas
>
> If the AI has no preference for being treated in the ways that  
> animals with bodies and brains do, then what would it mean to treat  
> others in the way it would like to be treated? You would have to  
> give it all sorts of negative emotions, like greed, pain, and the  
> desire to dominate, and then hope to appeal to its "ethics" even  
> though it was smarter and more powerful than you.
>
> -- 
> Stathis Papaioannou

Hi Stathis,

Many aspects of this question have gotten discussion here.  Of  
course, keeping mindful of the nature of any other informs us of the  
best way to handle her.  If you've designed a photovore to fetch your  
newspaper you enjoy giving it the light it craves.  Since we have the  
initiative regarding design, it makes little sense to design an  
anthrophagite AI with our flaws.   According to EP the mutual  
appreciation ethic is somewhat hard wired (for tribal social  
interactions) in the human brain.  I suggest we use the first  
generations of AI to help upgrade this ethic to species wide so we  
can avoid self destruction.   I think AI "training wheels" might  
serve us well till we become ready to control ourselves without  
reliance on coercive devises.  I see transhuman and AI development as  
a mutual partnership with each contributing to the other every step  
of the way.  At some point the two will likely become  
indistinguishable.  Then we only need keep mindful of our own nature  
to get along well together.  -- Thomas

Thomas at ThomasOliver.net

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20070618/a2e18054/attachment.html>