[ExI] Anthropomorphic AGI

[Tim Halterman]

I would rather see us create ourselves in their image.  The natural
evolution we were created by has obviously been effective over the millennia
but I think we can all see that it has become obsolete, inefficient and
mixed with out technology perhaps even harmful.  I can envision degradation
in the evolutionary advancement that our technology is propagating.
Cesarean births for example (drawn out over a long enough time frame) may
eventually result in our species being able to procreate without
technological intervention. (Genes which would have resulted in natural
failed births will be propagated to the young and passed through generation
to generation).
I hope one day we will not depend on the mixing of DNA to somewhat randomly
provide a better result, I think we're better than that.

-Tim
On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 11:11 AM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>wrote:

> Frequently, when fiction ponders intelligent robots, a sexless
> electronic machine is the result. This is a pure extrapolation from
> the sexless personal computers we have today. And, even if computers
> have a sex assigned in your language, then they all have the same sex
> like any other object.
>
> As I have been pondering what the "goal function" should be for AGIs,
> I wonder if it would be better for humanity's future if AGIs had a sex
> assigned. I then wonder whether some kind of artificial sex drive is
> desirable, and whether their reproductive mechanism should be
> analogous to human sex. This all starts to feel a bit strange, but if
> you want human beings to be viewed as similar to the god-like AGIs,
> then perhaps we would be smart to create them "in our own image". That
> way, we would seem more like them to them, and thus, just perhaps, we
> would be preserved.
>
> Building anthropomorphic machines may be a matter of survival for
> humanity. If the machines we build are sexless and asexual, it seems
> that they could more easily come to the conclusion that we are
> irrelevant.
>
> In addition, much of what we see as art and beauty is based in the sex
> drive. The concepts of art and beauty to asexual machines might
> diverge significantly from our concepts of the same, and the world
> could become a place that we would perceive to be devoid of beauty and
> art. That doesn't seem to be a desirable outcome.
>
> Similarly, if they are at least partially biological, so that they
> depend upon the same environment that we do, then they will have a
> better incentive to preserve the environment that we all depend upon.
> If they are entirely non-biological, then there is no reason for them
> to preserve the biosphere.
>
> If we build robots in a myriad of shapes and sizes, with limbs that
> are far different from ours, we make much of our infrastructure
> difficult for them, and eventually, our infrastructure would not be
> maintained for their benefit. This would be inconvenient, at the very
> least. If robots don't excrete waste products, then what will be the
> benefit to maintaining an expensive sewer system? Without sewers, it
> is unlikely we'll reach life spans of 500 years... :-)
>
> The future of human-serving architecture may depend upon building
> anthropomorphic AGIs.
>
> If robot's methods of learning are significantly different than ours,
> then universities may cease to exist. Learning faster may be OK,
> learning differently may not.
>
> We may even want to instill ancestor worship as their religion... ;-)
>
> I think there are many other areas where we risk our optimization/goal
> functions drifting away from that of robots.
>
> There are of course areas where we have common goals, such as energy
> production. If we continue to design robots and AGIs like today's
> vision, there may be fewer things in common and more that are
> divergent.
>
> Do we really want to break entirely from biology and evolution? Will
> that doom us more certainly? Or are we worried too much about the
> preservation of humanity and the biosphere? I think it's worth
> worrying about.
>
> So rather than being critical of science fiction when they create
> anthropomorphic robots, perhaps we should be grateful that they are
> creating a blueprint we can all live with.
>
> In the shorter term, maybe we should start assigning a sexual
> designation and individual name to our personal computers... just to
> get used to the idea... :-)
>
> -Kelly
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