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Old 04-30-2012, 06:02 PM   #41
roguebfl
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Default Re: Religious Prohibitions Leading to Safe-tech

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Could you please stop using words for humans when referring to computer programs?
Sapience does not mean refuses to obey orders. It is simply human level cognition, not human in everything by a long shot.
Sorry but no, Sapience is a very good benchmark for personhood. and slavery isn't a human word it's a person word. It just our experience of personhood has been limited to humans sofar.

If the program makes to Sapience level then it not just a computer program anymore
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:04 PM   #42
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Getting back to the original post:

1: "All men must speak the truth to all, even themselves." Obviously, people being people, they'll probably break this one all the time. But because everyone has to pretend this is true, it will be taboo to suggest that anyone might not know everything they think and feel. Without that, the idea of the unconscious mind will be delayed, and with it they'll miss out on a lot of modern academic and scientific psychology (Freud and everyone after him, in particular). Without that investigation into how people think and why, there likely won't be as much interest in building thinking machines.

2a: "The human body is involiate, both during life and after death." This parallels thinking in Europe during the Middle Ages. This'll cost the society, as there will be no surgery and and an incomplete theory of medicine. But it will prevent cybernetics and transhumanism.

2b: as an alternative to 2a: "The skull is the seat of the soul and the abode of the breath of God." This allows an understanding of human anatomy, but draws the line at neurobiology. With outan understanding of how the brain works, cybernetics become unlikely.
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:09 PM   #43
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Default Re: Religious Prohibitions Leading to Safe-tech

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Sorry but no, Sapience is a very good benchmark for personhood. and slavery isn't a human word it's a person word. It just our experience of personhood has been limited to humans sofar.

If the program makes to Sapience level then it not just a computer program anymore
Then you have expanded the definition beyond how I and many others use it.
Sapience is self-awareness, and in gurps simply IQ above 6. Neither of these imply human or even primitive mammal levels of intrinsic importance.

A working horse and a car are not slaves. They are property being used. The horse simply requires humane treatment, not freedom or wages.
A computer program deserves no more than the car for lacking the feelings the horse has.
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:14 PM   #44
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While the "Do people need religious justifications to keep themselves from eating poison" thing was somewhat relevant the sapience thing has strayed enough to become tangential to the thread. Let's try to stay on target.
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:15 PM   #45
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Getting back to the original post:

1: "All men must speak the truth to all, even themselves." Obviously, people being people, they'll probably break this one all the time. But because everyone has to pretend this is true, it will be taboo to suggest that anyone might not know everything they think and feel. ...
That must make politics even more violent by everyone hiding hypocrisy... or less as everyone firmly believes that the opposition simply disagrees rather than is lying and really hates your side and believes some straw man they are hiding.
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:18 PM   #46
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While the "Do people need religious justifications to keep themselves from eating poison" thing was somewhat relevant the sapience thing has strayed enough to become tangential to the thread. Let's try to stay on target.
True. But religions are outgrowths of cultural beliefs, and the definition of what/who is worthy of rights is on topic.
But OTOH, it is a sub-topic too prone to exploding to be of use for this thread.
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:23 PM   #47
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True. But religions are outgrowths of cultural beliefs, and the definition of what/who is worthy of rights is on topic.
But OTOH, it is a sub-topic too prone to exploding to be of use for this thread.
Quite true! The examination of who is worthy for rights is fine. It just needs to stay within the confines of a cultural viewpoint and have a focus on practical side effects with regards to technology.
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:45 PM   #48
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Could you please stop using words for humans when referring to computer programs?
Sapience does not mean refuses to obey orders. It is simply human level cognition, not human in everything by a long shot.
Actually in GURPS it means personhood, and people have the potential to rebel.

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Then you have expanded the definition beyond how I and many others use it.
Sapience is self-awareness, and in gurps simply IQ above 6.
No, GURPS has IQ 6+ computers that aren't defined as sapient.

Last edited by David Johnston2; 04-30-2012 at 06:49 PM.
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Old 04-30-2012, 06:47 PM   #49
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If one believes that advanced A.I. is deserving of full "human" rights, then there will simply be zero funding for their creation. There would be no money in creating tools that can't be made to the jobs they were designed for.

There might even be a baseless fear that overly complex mundane programs may become sapient on their own making even those illegal.
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Old 04-30-2012, 07:07 PM   #50
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Default Re: Religious Prohibitions Leading to Safe-tech

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If one believes that advanced A.I. is deserving of full "human" rights, then there will simply be zero funding for their creation. There would be no money in creating tools that can't be made to the jobs they were designed for.
This actually leads to a thought experiment me and some others did recently. We asked that if you could clone someone to do a high-paying profession (doctor was what we were going with) and they were much better than all others, would you even have to force them to do it? they'd find their way to it naturally, and after the first few you could calculate the risk that they wouldn't. (and get cloners' insurance or something).

That was about computers, but the same thing applies. If you create something so that the most economicly viable thing for it to do is what you want, then you have a good chance of it doing what you want (though it may not do it for you)

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There might even be a baseless fear that overly complex mundane programs may become sapient on their own making even those illegal.
this is where the real issues would come in though.
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