This is a fairly old concept in sci-fi, and I believe one of the golden oldies back in the late 1940's Heinlein or Cordwainer Smith, did a rendition of the 1903 edition of The Island of Dr Moreau. My answer to your questions ( I do not expect this to occur for centuries and centuries) can be summed up in a few phrases.
1. A lack of intelligent life (that we can relate to) in the universe
2. Lonliness, and a need to spread intelligence to the cosmos.
3. Nuturing needs passed on from humans to A.I./S.I's realting to the previous two reasons.
4. Entertainment. We did it, you can do it!
5. In case we A.I.'s go under, you kids can take over.
<<Anyway, ignoring any moral posturing for the moment, I've been
wondering whether there would be any real world incentives to create
moreaus or, to use a term and a similar idea from David Brin's
novels, "uplift" terrestrial animal species to human-level
intelligence?
As nifty as these ideas are for a novel, assuming we could, why
would we possibly want to do something like this?
-- Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de>>
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