[ExI] From Friendly AI to Loving AI

[Kelly Anderson]

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 2:48 PM, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> On 05/16/2011 09:54 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>>
>> 2011/5/6 spike<spike66 at att.net>:
>> Religion is all about controlling your desires. There is an internal
>> battle that by some Islamist texts is called the inner jihad. Giving
>> into lust in any fashion, including daydreaming, is coming short of
>> the goal. The idea is to give your spiritual self complete and utter
>> control over your carnal self. Subject the body to the will of the
>> soul or inner spirit of man.
>
> Control and disowning some drives/desires are very different things.
>  Transmutation - using the drives and desires to achieve the goal, whatever
> the goal is, is a well explored path.  Many creative people no about
> transmuting various energies into their work.  It is not an exclusively
> religious or spiritual thing.
>
> It strikes me that much of our evolved psychology will be increasingly in
> the way of our future progress as our environment gets further and further
> away from the environment those traits were evolved in and for.  So
> self-control is likely crucial to our achieving our H+ dreams.

Religions view themselves as a path to self control. I did not state
that it was the only such path. Nor was I (in this special case)
giving my own opinion, but rather putting myself into a "religious
mindset" and seeing what a religionist might have to say on the
subject, as Spike requested.

Self-control is almost certainly crucial to the success of ANY
sentient being with power. With great power comes great
responsibility... (isn't that in Matthew??? ;-)

-Kelly