Ethical Dilemmas - Discussion

[RJDiogenes]

Yeah, lots of food plants and animals have been bred to be very dissimilar from their "natural" state. Plus, we do things like cooking them, which changes their chemical structure. Overall, the changes Humanity has made to its food supply have been positive. Chocolate Chip Cookies are artificial, right? That justifies everything right there.

[Madeliaette]

well.... maybe for the majority of people - but i personally prefer my food to be as natural as possible! My choc chip cookies are more cocoa cooklies - no space between the chocolate!

[RJDiogenes]

No space between the chocolate-- that sounds good.

[scottydog]

What happens when our computers become smarter than we are? Here's an interesting TED talk on this subject.

[RJDiogenes]

It's interesting. The speaker cautions against anthropomorphizing, but he does a lot of it. He mentions preferences, but doesn't really seem to get that an artificial intelligence would completely lack any motivation that wasn't expressly programmed into it. Humans take motivation for granted. Any person that has ever accomplished anything has had more than intelligence-- they have had a personality. And that personality arises from the random squishiness of biology. It involves imagination, creativity, talent, curiosity, hunger, obsession. It can involve competition, love, jealousy, insecurity, ego, fear, ambition. A mind is made up of an infinitely complex web of attributes and that's something that won't be simulated soon. And, I think, before it happens, the supercomputers will be incorporated in the human brain.

[scottydog]

Seems like all the sci-fi episodes on this topic feature smart machines that are motivated by self-preservation. It may be impossible to know if machines can be possessed by such a motive.

I agree that we'll have implants before then.

[Lupine]

Seems like all the sci-fi episodes on this topic feature smart machines that are motivated by self-preservation. It may be impossible to know if machines can be possessed by such a motive.

And also, raw intelligence aside, any super-smart computer would have to realize that it couldn't exist too long without human intervention.

[scottydog]

^^ Why would they need human intervention, Lupy?

[RJDiogenes]

Maintenance. Also, we control the power cables.

Seems like all the sci-fi episodes on this topic feature smart machines that are motivated by self-preservation. It may be impossible to know if machines can be possessed by such a motive.

Self-preservation is purely biological, honed by evolution. Only individuals with such an instinct would survive to procreate. Like anything else, if it's not programmed into the computer, it won't have it.

[Lupine]

And even biology isn't always into self-preservation. Bees will end their life stinging something they think is a threat to the hive.

[scottydog]

Two questions:

Why wouldn't super-smart computers be able to do their own maintenance?

And why is self-preservation only a biologically driven motive? I would think that any sentient being (biological or mechanical) with self-awareness might want to remain in existence. One could argue that machines are 'evolving' and are subject to the same (or similar) evolutionary processes as biological beings.

[Lupine]

^True, but they would have to acquire the desire for self-preservation somewhere. In evolution self-preservation arose out of relatively random mutations. Those organisms with some degree of self-preservation survived and reproduced. Whether this could happen with a machine is an open question.

Why wouldn't super-smart computers be able to do their own maintenance?

It'd need some kind of robotic help, and those robots themselves would require maintenance. Technology will someday progress to the point where this is possible, but it will be awhile.

[RJDiogenes]

Indeed. Think of the infrastructure needed to maintain a supercomputer, from acquiring raw materials out of the ground, to transporting them, to designing and manufacturing components, to installing those components. A lot of that still has to be done by humans and, even if we imagine a scenario where it is entirely automated-- which at this point is impossible-- each stage of that process, as Lupy said, requires a recursive copy of the process. In other words, the mining process that gets the raw materials out of the ground requires the support of an entire maintenance process, the industrial complex that forges those raw materials into alloys and compounds and ceramics and so on each requires the support of an entire maintenance process. It's like an almost infinitely recursive fractal.

As for the self-preservation part of it, the computer is not today's version of a long line of individuals that evolved according to environmental pressures-- it is a constructed individual that is entirely dependent upon what its builders put into it. Now, certainly, it would be possible, in theory, to program a cyclic intelligence that evolves in stages according to simulated or inputted influences, and that could result in an artificial intelligences with motives, including self preservation-- or an artificial intelligence could simply be programmed with artificial instincts, including self preservation-- but this would have to be something that was deliberately planned and executed by humans.

[scottydog]

...but this would have to be something that was deliberately planned and executed by humans.

Future terrorists or evil crazed hackers will enjoy attempting this.....

[RJDiogenes]

And that's the real danger. But hopefully they will be as unsuccessful as they are in their attempts to obtain nukes and bio-weapons.