[ExI] If you built "Westworld" (or other robot sex) it would probably be with VR

Adrian Tymes atymes at gmail.com
Fri Nov 4 03:39:38 UTC 2016


On Thu, Nov 3, 2016 at 2:02 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Adrian - do you think that there is some age at which a person has an
> understanding of what it is that they are agreeing to do?  Physically and
> esp. emotionally?  No one can predict what their emotions will be.  Of
> course that does not magically happen at 18.  Some people don't have a clue
> way past that age.
>

Of course.  But society needs a way to distinguish those who do not have
that understanding, and thus are unable to accept responsibility for their
actions, from those who do and can.

Problem is, in practice any test of mental ability, of the form "answer
these questions correctly or you're not an adult", tends to very quickly be
repurposed into acceptance of correct thinking as defined by those in
power.  Vote for the wrong person?  Try to help the disenfranchised or
institutionally discriminated against?  You must be insane - so society
gets to lock you up, throw away the key, and confiscate your assets.

With such tests off the table for practical reasons, society is left with
very crude measures such as, "are you old enough?"  This has worked well
enough, until someone can come up with not just a better way (which is
easy), but a way to keep that better way from becoming corrupted and/or
massively distrusted, both during implementation and for at least many
decades of use (which is very hard).

Keep in mind: once you set it up you, personally, don't get to control it.
It will be controlled by those in power.  If you invest much fame or
reputation into the test - probably necessary in order to get wide
acceptance in the first place - they will gladly use that to give
legitimacy to the version they morph to their eds.  (They're rather good at
that.)
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