Re: Why Not a Planet Of The Apes?

Eric Watt Forste (arkuat@pobox.com)
Tue, 10 Jun 1997 12:23:27 -0700


Robin Hanson writes:
> By "domestication" I meant getting the primates to understand and keep
> the peace, so we needn't fear their presense. To trade instead of
> steal, etc. I would very much want them to not be slaves, but to have
> their own spaces, property, etc.

If this is what you meant by domesticate, then your project sounds
extremely ambitious to me, considering how many undomesticated members
of the primate species H. sapiens sapiens we still have to worry about.
(The Congress of the United States of America comes to mind.)

Of course, if we could easily escape from our undomesticated conspecifics
(space migration?), then your project might be a much more feasible one
than "traditional" AI, and I suspect that's your real point. But what
you're talking about is a tangly area, and thinking about it sets my
political-ethical thinking processes abuzz whether I like it or not.

--
Eric Watt Forste ++ arkuat@pobox.com ++ expectation foils perception -pcd