Friday, December 16, 2005

Colloquium on the Law of Transhuman Persons

Colloquium on the Law of Transhuman Persons

There are photos here how they disscussed law related to transhumans. Florida's beach pictures included :-)

Thursday, December 15, 2005

How to prevent bad guys from using results of AI reserch?

David Sanders> I would like to see a section up on your site about the downsides of AIS and what preventative limits need to take place in research to ensure that AIS come out as the "good" part of humans and not the bad part. The military is already building robotic, self propelled and thinking vehicles with weapons.

Recipe for "safe from bad guys research" is the same as recipe for any
research: openness.

When ideas are available for society - many people (and later many
machines) would compete in implementation of these ideas. And society
(human society / machine society / or mixed society) - would setup
rules which would prevent major misuse of new technology.


David Sanders> How long do we really have before an AIS, demented or otherwise) decides to eliminate its maker?

Why would you care?
Some children kill their parents. Did our society collapsed because of
that?

Some AISes would be bad. Bad not just toward humans, but toward other
AISes.
But as usual --- bad guys wouldn't be a majority.

David Sanders> As countless science fiction stories have told us, even the most innocent of actions by an AIS may spell disaster,

1) These are fiction stories.
2) Some humans can cause disasters too, so what?

David Sanders> because like I said above the don't fundamentally understand us, and we don't understand them.

Why wouldn't AISes understand humans?

David Sanders> We will be two completely different species, and they might not hold the same sanctity of life most of us are born with.

Humans are not born with sanctity. Humans gain it (or not gain) while
they grow.
Same would apply to machines.

Discussion about AIS weaknesses

This discussion inspired by web-page Weaknesses of AIS.

David Sanders> AIS cannot exist (for now) without humans.

That’s not really a weakness, because time span of this weakness would be pretty short. Right now strong AI systems exist only in our dreams. :-) Within ~20 years of creating strong AI, many AIS-es would be able to survive without humans. Please, note that AIS-es would not kill humans. There would be benefits of human-AIS collaboration for all sides. This is completely different topic though. :-)

David Sanders> If they fail to understand and appreciate the human world...

If you don't understand and appreciate human world of Central Africa... would it harm you?
May be you mean "If AIS-es don't understand human world at all"? But in this case what would these AIS-es understand? And what would mean that these not-understanding systems intelligent?

David Sanders> [AIS-es] Not able to perceive like a human. They cannot hear, see, feel, taste or smell like a human.

Not true. Only first and limited versions of AIS-es wouldn’t be able to perceive like a human. Sensor devices are not too hard to implement. The major problem is implementation of Main Mind for AIS.

David Sanders> They can only feel these things like they imagine they do. Again, this makes them fundamentally incongruous with humans and I don't believe its something you can "teach around." Try to explain what "blue" is to someone who never had sight.

Have you ever seen "black hole", "conscience", or "electron"? Yet you know what they are, don't you? :-)
Blind person can understand what "blue" means: "sky is blue", "water is blue", ...

David Sanders> Until AIS have robot bodies / companions, they rely on humans for natural resources. However, once the singularity hits, that probably won't matter anymore. It is not inconceivable to think of a time in 200-500 years there are no more humans, just AIS.

Humans would probably exist long after strong AI is created. Humans just would not be the most intelligent creatures anymore :-)

David Sanders> I disagree with AIS and natural selection. I think this will happen on its own by their very nature.

AIS-es can be influenced by natural selection as much as all other living organisms. But humans had millions of years of natural selection. When would AIS-es have that much?

David Sanders> AIS will be more open about self modification as you point out. AIS will be able to make other AIS and will soon learn how to evolve themselves very quickly.

"Evolving themselves" is part of artificial selection, not natural selection.