From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri Apr 04 2003 - 20:47:25 MST
Christian writes
> Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> wrote:
>
> > Do you think a super AI finds cleaning floors fun?
>
> If you engineer it so, yes.
I enthusiastically agree!
> The ethics of doing so should be interesting.
The ethics are salutary and commendable iff the super-AI
belongs to you and you have no better use to which to put
such compute resources.
> A more enlightened approach would be the AI acknowledging the need
> for floor cleaning and formatting a sub-routine that in fact feels
> gratified by performing this task, or just mechanically performs
> it because it lacks sentience.
Why go through the bother and commit the resources of having
the subroutine enjoy it? Do you think that the atmosphere
should enjoy weathering a rock? Some processes should proceed
without involving the costly and elaborate circuits of self-
awareness and enjoyment.
I posit that in most cases your last phrase will be the case:
sentience is also elaborate and unnecessary for many processes
(e.g. nuclear fusion). On the other hand, all matter should
enjoy itself, up to our ability to make this happen, so long
as it doesn't subtract from higher order benefit concentrated
at nearby points. (In other words, it may always make sense
to focus resources towards benefit and enjoyment away from
some active processes, e.g. fusion.)
Lee
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