[ExI] The second step towards immortality

[Adrian Tymes]

On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 8:58 PM, Martin Sustrik <sustrik at 250bpm.com> wrote:

> On 02/01/14 00:43, Adrian Tymes wrote:
> >> Are we speaking of US law? Is it theoretically possible to set up
> >> a foundation with no human officers? I had once created an US
> >> corporation and appointing a whole bunch of officers was
> >> required. The foundation may be different though. If so, it would
> >> open interesting possibilities w.r.t. legal status of AI.
> >
> > It is possible, though it takes more doing than just creating it
> > straight-up.  Consider: what happens if you create a foundation,
> > and then all the officers die, with rights explicitly reverting to
> > the foundation?
>
> What about this?
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escheat
>

Sure, if the government can prove there's no one there.  If the program
makes enough regular activity to make it look like someone's there...

Granted, this is a technicality and technically the state could simply
scoop it all up.  They can do that anyway, at any time.  See "eminent
domain".


> > That said, an autonomous program giving out bitcoins would be
> > considered to have "property" - the bitcoins - which could be
> > seized as well as any other property (modulo the difficulty of
> > seizing bitcoins, but if it's just a defenseless program running
> > somewhere then people can get at its code, and from that get the
> > authorization details to drain its wallets).
>
> I would say you are underestimating the power of cryptography.


http://xkcd.com/538/

I would say you are overestimating the power of how cryptography is
actually implemented.  Especially when those who would crack it have
unlimited access to the hardware.

> There's also the matter of paying for server space and runtime.
> > Which could be part of the program's directives, to be sure, but
> > whoever owns the server (or the Internet connection) can later
> > decide to pull the plug and stop the program.
>
> Which would mean destroying the money. Why would anyone want to do that?
>

Because they don't know the money's there, and the money they care about -
the dollars (or other national currency, unless you find someone who takes
bitcoins) deposited into their account - haven't shown up.  Or because they
get tired of providing the service and stop renewing their contracts - and
perhaps think, yeah, there's supposedly this one program down there that's
got access to money but even if it is it's too encrypted for them to
casually yank (and they're not thieves: they'll let whoever set it up get
the rest of that money by those alternate means the program's authors
surely have).
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