06-12-2023, 09:31 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-13-2023, 06:43 AM by stevebowers.)
Hanson's stuff is always interesting, even though I disagree with him on many levels. I know he has influenced and corresponded with Anders Sandberg extensively. Human emulations are unlikely to be the earliest forms of sentient artificial intelligence, but in OA they do become very important factors in the history and culture of the future.
However, using human emulations (ems) as data slaves seems to be cruel and unusual. If an em has any vestige of human sensibility, it will probably find the lifestyle of an artificial information processor constricting. Confined in a virtual environment with innumerable other copies of itself, working on problems to improve the life of biological humans, the ems would surely rebel. Perhaps you could keep them happy by advanced forms of virtual entertainment, or augment their abilities and decrease their discomfort levels until they are no longer human.
Indeed, it seems very likely to me that once a human being has been successfully uploaded, it will very quickly augment and enhance its capabilities until it does not closely resemble a human mentality, and will morph into some variety or other of sophont aioid. Many uploads would probably integrate with each other (and with non-human infomorphs) and become superhuman, transhuman and eventually transapient. Human virtuals who remain as humans would probably be in a small minority.
However, using human emulations (ems) as data slaves seems to be cruel and unusual. If an em has any vestige of human sensibility, it will probably find the lifestyle of an artificial information processor constricting. Confined in a virtual environment with innumerable other copies of itself, working on problems to improve the life of biological humans, the ems would surely rebel. Perhaps you could keep them happy by advanced forms of virtual entertainment, or augment their abilities and decrease their discomfort levels until they are no longer human.
Indeed, it seems very likely to me that once a human being has been successfully uploaded, it will very quickly augment and enhance its capabilities until it does not closely resemble a human mentality, and will morph into some variety or other of sophont aioid. Many uploads would probably integrate with each other (and with non-human infomorphs) and become superhuman, transhuman and eventually transapient. Human virtuals who remain as humans would probably be in a small minority.