Re: extropians-digest V3 #7

Jonathan Colvin (jcolvin@ican.net)
Tue, 23 Jun 1998 16:40:26 -0700


Anders Sandberg wrote:
"I think this is a fallacy. First, why would AI have no emotions or a
limited repertoar? Given current research into cognitive neuroscience
it seems that emotions are instead enormously important for rational
thinking since they provide the valuations and heuristics necessary
for making decisions well."

Why would we want to give AI emotions? Emotions are an evolutionary
development to enable us to better our chances of survival in highly
political hunter-gatherer societies. I doubt if AI are going to have to
reproduce sexually, compete for mates, compete for food, play game-theory to
increase their survival chances, and do all the other things that
hunter-gatherers and their immediate descendants (us) have to do to ensure
that our replicators get to replicate. So why fetter them with a gamut of
often counter-productive drives and restraints that cause humans so much
trouble?

Jonathan Colvin
jcolvin@ican.net

Paraglide Ontario: http://home.ican.net/~jcolvin/paraglid.html