[ExI] roboburgers to go

Kelly Anderson kellycoinguy at gmail.com
Tue Oct 1 00:59:13 UTC 2013


On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 5:58 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> On 2013-09-29 10:51, BillK wrote:
>
>>
>> Sure, people have different views on what we really ought to do. But that
> doesn't relativize moral truth any more than the fact that people have had
> different views on the shape of the earth changes what shape it really is.
> There could be a One True Moral System that we may or may not have found.
> The deep question is of course if the OTMS exists, how it exists, and if we
> can know it. In practice, however, moral systems do have sensible and
> actionable ideas that should be followed, especially when several agree
> with each other.


Now there is a job that just perhaps no machine will ever be able to figure
out... LOL.


> And, of course, the people employed in nasty jobs might object
>
>> strongly to being told that their job has been eliminated.
>>
>
> Should we introduce a cheap shipwrecking robot that would prevent
> Pakistani children from making a living in the industry, yet save their
> health? It is nontrivial, sure. But what about medical robots that make
> medical care cheaper? Some doctors and nurses will be forced to do
> different jobs, but healthcare will become cheaper and easier to provide to
> poor people. Now, the occupation doctor is not so bad that it ought not
> exist. It is just consequentially a good thing if it could be done with a
> gadget. There are other jobs (fluffers, sewage workers, guano or sulphur
> collectors, CTS decon or porta potty cleaners) where I think a very strong
> case can be made in nearly every moral system that it would be good for the
> workers if that work did not exist.
>

I resent fluffers being put into the same category as porta potty cleaners.
Aside from that one man's child labor is another man's automation.

I have no doubt there are some people doing horrible things who actually
> love their jobs. But if those are rare in the occupation, you have a good
> reason to suspect that the occupation ought to go.


According to Mike Rowe, loving dirty jobs is more of the norm than the
exception. For example, I would much prefer operating an excavator to
programming a computer, but there is just no money in it. My most favorite
job of all time was planting pineapples, which was backbreaking even at 16.
But the views of Kaho'Olawe were just to die for.


> The transhuman enhancement of morality is a dangerous concept. One
>
>> man's morality is another man's oppression.
>>
>
> Only if you try to impose your morality on others. See the work on the
> ethics of moral enhancement we have done in Oxford: there are plenty of
> things that might be doable that would make people better able to act
> morally without prescribing what morality to believe in.


There are things we all could likely agree on. While child labor is
relative, child pornography probably isn't.

-Kelly
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