Analog vs. Digital AI (was fetal tissue)
James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Tue, 03 Mar 1998 19:50:00 -0800
At 04:48 PM 3/3/98 -0500, Reilly Jones wrote:
>> Max More wrote:
><Beings of at least human personality who are not genetically human
>(possible ETs, genetically altered descendants of humanity, and -- you may
>not grant this -- future AIs) could have as strong a moral standing as you
>or I.>
>
>And just who would be granting said moral standing to such entities? I
>would grant future AIs with a majority of analog components, I just won't
>grant that anything purely digital could ever be conscious, consciousness
>must access the entire universe, not just 50% of it.
What?! What 50% are digital systems missing?
Digital systems have the same resolution/perception capability as analog
systems within the limits of the noise floor (which affects analog systems
as well). There is nothing analog that can not be represented digitally
within the limits of the analog system. There are well known methods for
reading and storing arbitrary precision analog values with digital devices
as primitive as a 1-bit signal converters.
Please explain what you mean by the above statement.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com