Comments on: Can we develop and test machine minds and uploads ethically?

By: Khannea Suntzu

Khannea Suntzu — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:31:22 +0000

The magical quality we bestow on humans (or should bestow, we don’t nearly enough) are right. Specifically human rights. That is the magic of what it means to be human – to be perceived as that which matters most.

The soul may be a metaphor for that simple act of being seen, acknowledged and remembered. It is giving a damn and having other people give a damn about you.

That is what it means when people say ‘animals don’t have a soul’. It reduces animals to the level of commodity. Or at least to the level of gingers.

By: Khannea Suntzu

Khannea Suntzu — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:26:46 +0000

Damn will be surprised if in a few decades the number of registered types of unique types of things conscious, sapient, self-aware, intelligent, self-reflecting, creative, tool using, strategizing, planning, forethinking, anticipating, cognitive, aware of good and evil, mindful, wise, able to judge, imaginative, lucid, yadda yadda yadda you can buy in a store is hundreds and increasing ever faster.

This is software. In the software of mind is considerable utility, especially if we conceptually deconstruct the human mind. You probably won’t like that, but you can bet I will, and in effect I already do. LSD remember?

It’s all semantics. But it is semantics that describes real things. I can see these buggers right in font of me, as plain as electrons. Can you?

By: geekette

geekette — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:29:01 +0000

Having said all of that… I’ve had discussions with my journalist friends in Berkeley about exactly this topic. If there was a cell phone like gadget that could monitor deviant or unethical behavior, and it was VOLUNTARY to use it… people in positions of power who volunteer to use them, could perhaps be more trusted. By positions of power I don’t just mean politicians. But this won’t help if they’re not used… e.g. the country of Myanmar, the prisions, domestic violence situations, etc.

Sousveillance may be ready to help with this issue as well.

By: geekette

geekette — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:09:01 +0000

hi. As an AI research scientist who has also worked for 10 years with eastern medical practices that focus on the mind, I developed emotion oriented programming (pioneered it) and modelling mental and emotional state in multi-agent systems. Also created the (first?) robot with compassion. I wrote a sci fi story, The Robotic Priest, which gives a good example of how this type of mind technology can help us. I work with the folk son Obama and Michelle’s cyber-anti-bullying task force. ETC. Just to say, I have thought of these issues quite a bit and I am aggressively pursuing this idea, because I think mankind NEEDS this.

HOWEVER….as demonstrated by so many other systems in our life right not, it is not the technology, but the systems and ethics of the people who use them. From our medical system to the banks to the privacy/protection and user interface issues. There is this thing called Entropy.

Some of these papers are online at www-formal.stanford.edu/~cmason

By: Eugénisme Spirituel : pour les transhumanistes les consciences seront filtrés pour éviter des problèmes d’upload « singularite

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 21:11:48 +0000

[...] Can we develop and test machine minds and uploads ethically? [...]

By: Can we develop and test machine minds and uploads ethically? « KHANNEA SUNTZU'S NYMIOUS MESS

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 06:26:49 +0000

[...] Reprinted from here [...]

By: melajara

melajara — Tue, 17 May 2011 09:05:58 +0000

Once again Man, this full of hubris creature is giving too much importance to her/himself by confusing “consciousness” by HUMAN consciousness. It is most probable that “consciousness” is a state of generalized awareness of oneself body (a distinctive evolutionary advantage) largely shared by MANY animals as its location seems not to be in the (neo)cortex but at the intersection of the brain stem and supervision of bodily functions.

Therefore, instead of ratiocining about an unreal premise (so far) i.e. consciousness in silico, let’s instead concentrate on the animal rights and about the legitimacy or not of “meat production”.

Now, personnaly I’m finding those “thought experiments” fastidious.
Why not instead discuss this very important question: what’s the sex of angels? By the way, do angels have wings? Do they have feathers? How long are those feathers? On average, how many feathers per wing?

By: billyswong

billyswong — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 22:42:02 +0000

I don’t quite get what you mean Khannea. People usually either claim people have souls, or people don’t have souls. What do you mean “will be soulless”?

By: xxdanbrowne

xxdanbrowne — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 04:34:21 +0000

I think we’re projecting current understanding here.
How do we know that a mindclone cannot be “synched” with a pre-existing individual so that the real “individual” is actually composed of two (or more) individuals. It is premature to start forming ethical comparisons of what might be possible in the future when viewer with today’s lens.

By: Khannea Suntzu

Khannea Suntzu — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:22:04 +0000

I have another interesting thought experiment for you – what if I record / render a mind clone. And then I boot it up in learning mode, but not yet volitional .. I follow the legal guidelines as to keep it formally defined as a ‘thing’. Then I sync it with my thought processes as much as I can. I debug it (my natural mind is rather buggy) and at some point it goes online, BUT. The very moment I go online, a segment of my brain (probably dead tissue) is taken from my head, and I die, and the tissue is kept inside the mind clone’s central processors. And then my legal representation claims my brain is in there, kept alive. This may or may not be true, rather tricky to find out. My mind clone will perceive herself as me, and will not be inclined to disagree since the presence of that tissue (in part or whole) makes the resulting creature a legal continuation of me. The mind clone will have strong arguments to identify as ‘me’, and will regard the transference as a therapeutic treatment, rather than a transference. It will be an ‘upgrade’. The brain material inside might even have a residual neurological function (no matter how rudimentary *snortles*) of some sort, who cares? Now where would you propose meddling with the process, and sending AI civil rights busybodies to abduct my mind clone? Where would my mind clone decide she’d rather be Phyllis or Zoe rather than Khannea? The logical extension of this is that treating a union of willing interlocking mind clones as separate as an invasive act. It would be potentially murder of a legal entity, namely me, seeking continuation of my essential pattern. Someone might send the cops in the lab, take my mind clone, forcibly emancipate it and in doing so ditch what I was in the garbage, on account of some civil rights prejudice. Separate entities, sure, they should potentially be regarded as subjects of a freedom struggle. But if I intend to create a hive mind of seamlessly interlocking and designed mutually interdependent versions of myself, then any attempt to interfere I would greet with considerable hostility. My mind is mine, and my minds are equally mine. If at some point one matures and expresses a sincere desire to defect you have to trust me I’ll let her. Or it. Or him. But you’d have to let ME make decisions that pertain to ME.

By: hapitune

hapitune — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:43:47 +0000

Creating mindclones will no doubt take an enormous amount of research. Even if the process of creating a conscious being were done in stages, there is still some point at which the being will become sensient and the continued tests to see whether the being was actually sensient would violate the being’s right to choose whether it participates or not. Even in the case of babies being used in research studies, where the baby can not explicitly give consent, babies are still granted rights to withdraw from the study. If a baby becomes upset and shows signs of undue stress, the researcher is obligated to stop. They can try again but if the baby persists, the researcher must take that as a sign the the baby has withdrawn from the study. My point is that even beings who don’t have the ability to give conformed consent have the right to end their participation. So why can’t another conscious, sentient being have that same right? Even if they are unable to show their discomfort, why must it be dismissed? If it is indeed a conscious being, with sentience equal to that of a human, it should be treated as such.

Furthermore, the mindclone is not the same person. Yes it is a copy of a mindfile, but one totally seperate and sovereign from the original. The original mind will not feel, think, or sense what the clone will and vise versa. I don’t believe the original has an ethical right to have full governing power over what happens to the clone, just as a person doesn’t have the right to fully govern over any other person.

By: lennier1

lennier1 — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:09:57 +0000

I am very skeptical of the possibility of separating various aspects of the mind as the author proposes. How can we possibly create an entity that has human levels of logic and emotion, yet isn’t self aware? This would seem to me to be a philosophical zombie–it could act just like a human (passing the Turing test, for instance), yet would have no subjective experience. While we can’t say for sure without learning a lot more about the brain, I believe that it is impossible to fake consciousness. If an entity acts conscious, we should consider it to be so. I doubt we will ever find a “consciousness bridge” in the brain. Consciousness, I believe, emerges from many different parts of the brain acting together, but we will not be able to isolate a single part like “emotions” and have it function in a realistic, healthy way.

By: Can we develop and test machine minds and uploads ethically? « Khannea Suntzu's Nymious Mess

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:31:07 +0000

[...] Can we develop and test machine minds and uploads ethically? Posted: April 26, 2011 by Khannea Suntzu in Uncategorized 0 Reprinted from here [...]

By: Khannea Suntzu

Khannea Suntzu — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:25:16 +0000

Billy, if both mind clone and original agree (and better – function as if) they are two limbs of the same identity, then it is their respective choice. Consenting adults, right? You or any state legislator have absolutely no say in their expression of free will, other than evaluate whether or not coercion is involved. You can rest assured that when I achieve joyful immortality (which at this rate I am pretty much guaranteed I won’t – let’s make sure I survive this MONTH) and I have the capacity to boot up a mind clone (or to my surprise I find I am one) I’ll be a very captain Jack on that big pirate ship. I won’t be a captive, sailing the seas of the future with all my sisters around me – and anyone who cares visit me for an extended vacation in my mind. It’ll be a unanimous choice to be a singular entity, and we will all be (including the original) be completely and blissfully soulless. I am already soulless you see? It will be a compliment to call us all one and undivided. We’ll all be never alone again.

By: billyswong

billyswong — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 05:32:58 +0000

I agree with most of what this article saying. Only one thing. A mindclone is not the same person of the original. It is more like his/her twin brother/sister conjoined completely, unknowing each other in the past, get separated. The clone may share the same past and same character, but it has a different soul, and thus slightly different. Calling them the same person is an insult both to the original and the clone.