The Change

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by johndallman

You have, a bit. Consider the position of women in early twentieth-century western societies. They weren't obsolete or irrelevant, but they didn't have very much power; they have somewhat more nowadays. .

Regardless of how little power women might have had, they remained an indispensable part of society. The same is not true of biological intelligence in THS. Humans provide nothing that the intelligences can't provide for themselves.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That depends on how close they are to death anyway. THS doesn't have biological immortality yet and by the time they do, they may very well have nondestructive brain copying as well. I kind of expect they will.

Not paying attention. The setting has indefinite continuation of normal human lives since 2088. Considering that AIs can't run on self-repairing hardware yet the fleshies are probably closer to "immortalilty" than the digital types.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

That depends on how close they are to death anyway. THS doesn't have biological immortality yet and by the time they do, they may very well have nondestructive brain copying as well. I kind of expect they will.

THS is pretty close to bio-imortality for those with money. Those without money couldn't afford the "uploading" costs anyway. But I did say few not none.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

THS is pretty close to bio-imortality for those with money. Those without money couldn't afford the "uploading" costs anyway. But I did say few not none.

And this is why Japan has black-market uploading procedures on the cheap. Either way, both technologies are likely to gradually become more affordable as time goes by.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Not paying attention. The setting has indefinite continuation of normal human lives since 2088. Considering that AIs can't run on self-repairing hardware yet the fleshies are probably closer to "immortalilty" than the digital types.

Meh, biological need maintenance, silicoids need maintenance, they're just different types of maintenance. On the bright side, hotswap plug-and-play part replacemennt is much easier for silicoids, as is backup-making (just think about certain RAID-like arrangements or distributed mirroring . . . ).