Re: Yudkowsky's AI (again)

Michael Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Sat, 27 Mar 1999 15:48:30 -0500

Damien Broderick wrote:

> At 11:24 AM 3/25/99 -0500, Mike wrote:
>
> > A number of someones for the test phase of the technology
>
> <snip>
>
> >What you want to guard against is unethical persons being uploaded.
>
> But who're likely to be the guineapigs in what amount to unprecedented
> medical experiments? Folklore suggests that hardened criminals are often
> given the option of serving as testbeds for potentially lethal
> inoculations, since they have little to lose. Might it be the same in this
> case?
>
> `Oh no, Dr Frankenstein, you've uploaded the *criminal brain*!'

Well, we didn't send criminals up into space on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, nor was Chuck Yeager a criminal. I don't know how many HIV positive people I've met who have said that they would be happy to be guinea pigs for testing AIDS drugs.

Then there is the market for research subjects. I guy I know gets paid $175 for two hours each weekend to act as a test subject on an MRI imaging research project. Extrapolating this to research like uploading, I'm sure that it would be easy to find subjects among the terminally ill, to pay all of their medical debts and extra to their families for the chance to possibly have themselves uploaded. Uploading can be seen as potentially the final cure for terminal illness.

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