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What do we owe sentient machines?

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johnson1010
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Re: What do we owe sentient machines?

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Ant:
Why SHOULD we? Just because we can? Does that line of reasoning immediately follow our scientific prowess - we can so therefore we ought to.
It seems inevitable that if it's possible it will be done.

I think we are flat out just curious to see if it can be done. For one, there's the prosepect of better understanding our own brains and how they function. What is and isn't possible. Then there's the idea of "the other". If the universe were absolutely littered with intelligent aliens the distances and time constraints might still mean our best chance of contacting another kind of "person" might still be to create AI on earth.

Then there's preservation of human minds. A sufficiently powerful computer which mimics the activity of a human brain to perfection would give the illusion of immortality for passed loved ones. An integration with mechanical components in life might lead to literal immortality...

http://www.booktalk.org/the-infinite-human-t11540.html

I think what we fear the most is that a new computer AI that was at our level of ability would shortly be able to invent a better computer that was far beyond our abilities which would quickly ramp up to god-like levels of power. An almost all-knowing intellect whose life was not tied to the existence of any physical manifestation which would be able to exert control of almost any aspect of modern life.

Not finding a god waiting for us when we became self aware, we might make one ourselves. We worry that this one might be as capriciaous and angry as our ancestors imagined. But maybe it wouldn't need to hate us to be the end of us. Maybe just not caring about us would be enough.

Fun thoughts!

As to accountability... An AI on a murder spree or a human might have essentially the same culpability. You can say for instance that people who go on shooting rampages usually have some kind of hideous event in their past, or a systematic pattern of abuse that left them broken and ostricised from humanity. They didn't create the situation that led to them being murderers, but all the same they were the ones pulling the trigger.

So imagine you are in a factory that deals in molten lead. one day a valve opens up above the cafeteria and people die. It isn't the valve's fault that it killed people, but it still has to be stopped or it might open again. You'll need to trace back all the engineering mistakes that lead to that valve being placed in such a dangerous place, find the system of incompetence that leads to dangerous valves being placed above people's heads to REALLY fix the problem once and for all... but in the mean time, that valve has to be stopped.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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ant

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Re: What do we owe sentient machines?

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Hey, Johnson..,

you gonna check this out?

http://www.amc.com/shows/humans?gclid=C ... fgod5KUG0Q


Looks like it could be interesting!
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ant

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Re: What do we owe sentient machines?

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Which one of you is going to tell me why a machine can effectively house biological sentience in the first place?
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Re: What do we owe sentient machines?

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Back to the original topic of sentience, which is the ability to feel, perceive, and suffer - as distinct from intelligence. I'm with ant - I don't see even highly intelligent machines developing sentience for a very long time if ever. What do we currently "owe" machines? Not much. Respect your neighbors car, don't bash it up or steal it. Do what you want with your own computers - maintain them and upgrade compulsively or neglect and discard them when they no longer operate satisfactorily, it's all good.

However, machines can be programmed to mimic sentience. A robot could put it's hand on a hot stove, notice temperature sensors exceeding a max limit, quickly withdraw it, scream "OUCH" and blow on the hand. That might look convincing, but the machine is not actually suffering or feeling anything. In the distant future, say 50 to 250 years, sentient behavior may be fully programmed into machines such that it would be nearly impossible to believe they don't suffer or have positive emotions. As the thread title asks, what would we "owe" those "sentient" machines? In practical terms I expect abusing those machines would feel about like abusing a pet or a child, much different than today where hitting a computer with a baseball bat might provide a gush of pleasure. :omfg:
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Re: What do we owe sentient machines?

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This is not about A.I. but may be related.
According to the N.Y.Times there was a secretive meeting of scientists to discuss synthetically fabricating a human genome.

It's thought it may be possible eventually to use a synthetic genome to create human beings without biological parents.

Unlikely though that is, these ideas do percolate in the minds of some scientists. As for A.I. and real sentience I'm inclined to agree with ant and Landroid on that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/scien ... e.html?_r0
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Re: What do we owe sentient machines?

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We're conditioned to think that almost anything conceived by science can become reality, because it seems unwise to bet against the stellar track record of science and tech. Still, it's not necessarily true that we'll have the ability to create the sentient machines that some people imagine. Our ideal of what we'd be able to accomplish in space has at this point far outpaced what we've actually been able to do, and that's relatively simple compared to making non-biological humans.
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Re: What do we owe sentient machines?

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DWill wrote:We're conditioned to think that almost anything conceived by science can become reality, because it seems unwise to bet against the stellar track record of science and tech. Still, it's not necessarily true that we'll have the ability to create the sentient machines that some people imagine. Our ideal of what we'd be able to accomplish in space has at this point far outpaced what we've actually been able to do, and that's relatively simple compared to making non-biological humans.
If AI = Consciousness then we arent even close because we have no idea what gives rise to consciousness.
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Re: What do we owe sentient machines?

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we have no idea what gives rise to consciousness
I don't think this is true.

We know it has something to do with brains. Any evidence we have ever had for consciousness has been tied to living brains.
That aint nothing. It's a good place to start.

And even if we could never know the whole truth of it, it still bears fruit to think about the topic and try to learn more.
In the absence of God, I found Man.
-Guillermo Del Torro

Are you pushing your own short comings on us and safely hating them from a distance?

Is this the virtue of faith? To never change your mind: especially when you should?

Young Earth Creationists take offense at the idea that we have a common heritage with other animals. Why is being the descendant of a mud golem any better?
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ant

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Re: What do we owe sentient machines?

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johnson1010 wrote:
we have no idea what gives rise to consciousness
I don't think this is true.

We know it has something to do with brains. Any evidence we have ever had for consciousness has been tied to living brains.
That aint nothing. It's a good place to start.

And even if we could never know the whole truth of it, it still bears fruit to think about the topic and try to learn more.
We know it has something to do with brains therefore we know how sentience arises?

Is this some sort of joke?
Who do you think youre talking to here?

No scientific study has ever declared or confirmed we know how consciousness arises.

Stop with this fundamental scientism bullshit.
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Re: What do we owe sentient machines?

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ant wrote:
johnson1010 wrote:
we have no idea what gives rise to consciousness
I don't think this is true.

We know it has something to do with brains. Any evidence we have ever had for consciousness has been tied to living brains.
That aint nothing. It's a good place to start.

And even if we could never know the whole truth of it, it still bears fruit to think about the topic and try to learn more.
We know it has something to do with brains therefore we know how sentience arises?
Sentience has been conflated with consciousness several times in this thread.
Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel (sentience).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience
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