Should real robots obey Asimov's Laws?

[Nate the Great]

This is a fairly simple poll. Ever since Asimov created the Laws, scifi authors and fans everywhere have jumped on them as being "definative" or "mandatory" for modern robotics. However, we all know that such codified directives are hardly required. So, the question is, should we add them to robots when/if we get to the point that there are robots "smart" enough to understand and obey them?

Yeah, this is a topic designed for controversy, but I think that Doctor Who has been hogging the spotlight in this forum long enough.

[e of pi]

Are the Laws a good concept? Yes. Are they a good set of basic guidlines? Yeah. Are they perfect or the best? No. They're too simple, as seen in I, Robot and other areas, to allow full trust. More practical, but less explicitly statable or imaginable laws will be more likely.

[mudshark]

A requirement? No. They may not be preferable, or even practical, for that matter, but I think that the general notion of "laws of robotics" bears consideration.

Even though Asimov coined the word (in 1940, according to one dictionary), he would have been the first to point out that he himself was not a roboticist. He reasoned, though, that robots, beyond a certain level of sophistication, could not be programmed with every eventuality anticipated -- it was far too complicated -- and that they would need to have some set of rules for working out, independently, just what to do in an unforeseen circumstance. They needed to be able to think something through, and needed to know where the lines were... what was in-bounds and what was not.

His Three (or four) Laws of Robotics fulfilled a literary function. I think it likely that real roboticists will have to design in -- perhaps are beginning to do so already -- a comparable set of rules that, while they may bear little or no actual resemblance to Asimov's, will fulfill the practical equivalent of that function.

[Hejira]

I think if we get to the point where AI really is I, then morals should be taught to them, as they are to humans.

Yes, we have scumbag humans, but that doesn't stop us making more humans.

[MaverickZer0]

No. Setting guidelines like that will only eliminate the reaches of the AI. If you want to limit them, do so physically--give them only the strength of an adult human, say--rather than mentally by set parameters. They should learn morals like anyone else. And if they go psycho, we can lock them away in a capsule for 30 years with ethical sims running in their head.

But the Three Laws, when you look at them, are not practical. What if one human is in danger from another one, and you cannot shield the one in danger? The only option is to diasble the attacker, but under Asimov's three (though not the fourth) the robot would freeze. And then, what if many robots were in danger from a human, a fanatic or something? What then? Or many animals?

You can't cut everything down so simply. Asimov's Laws work well for Asimov's writing. In the real world, we'd need different limits; hence limiting physical strength. I hesitate to suggest we limit their intelligence as well, because that would be what they were for and unfair, but possibly that would only be when the robot seemed to be a danger.

[Nate the Great]

Uh, even human strength can be quite dangerous when coupled with the proper weapon and intelligence behind it.

I think that the key here is the question "how many tasks that we would want robots to do really require anything even remotely close to human intelligence?" I can't think of one. Hence any programmed moral code would be unnecessary.

As for the robot that can't shield the human, it's simple enough to add "if you can't protect one human without hurting another, just do nothing."

[MaverickZer0]

Agreed. But if not given a reason to do so, a large intellect will not rebel, knowing nothing could be accomplished. Robots are less likely to warmonger than humans, not more.

In which case, you're once again limiting an AI's capabilities. Limiting their possibilities in a way you could not do with a human. I am talking about possibly-sentient robots here, not factory-line workers that need only guidelines.

Limiting again. It's also saying to the human in danger, if you don't care about the robot, 'tough luck, it's just your time, though there is someone who could get you out of it right there'.

[Nate the Great]

I really will try not to tighten the range of my original question.

Oh, and how do people feel about Asimo and his friends? I saw a demonstration of him at the U of M, and I was curious.

[mudshark]

A nice toy that shows off their recent advances in mobility mechanics, as the name indicates.

[Nate the Great]

I particularly found the face-recognition feature interesting. Imagine being able to connect a basic topographic map with a name, and at several different angles at that.

[Chancellor Valium]

What do you mean, 'even' human strength?!

Of course human strength is bloody dangerous!

Sorry.

It all depends, I think on two questions:

1) Do robots count as self-aware, and/or as living?
2) Do we have the right to control what they think?

And right now, I'm not even going to pretend to know the answer. I will say this though:

Why do we *need* robots that are so advanced that such laws would be necessary? Has anyone thought about the economic consequences? What about the moral questions? Finally, what about the Marvin Problem?

[Nate the Great]

The only reason I can think of for "thinking" robots is to use as soldiers, and even then, I'm dubious. I'll cut down my rant on current military strategy to simply this: why have large numbers of ground troops AND weapons of mass destruction? For that matter, what are we accomplishing by having armies of robots attack each other? A waste of resources, no question.

[Gatac]

You've strafed one of my pet topics. Take cover, for I will now whip out a small treatise on the subject.

You ask why we have soldiers and WMDs. This is a bad question, because it assumes that war is only about the quickest and cheapest way to kill the most people. This is a common misconception. War is about defeating the enemy, specifically crushing his military might. While this can be served by killing his soldiers, this is often inefficient and hard to pull off, because humans are surprisingly sturdy. It is not so much our ability to directly withstand damage but to survive, to dig in, to keep your head down and spring up again. In a (relatively) recent example, Soviet forces on the Eastern front in WW2 were regularly taken by surprise when they advanced, because German troops knew exactly how to dig in. Even after hours of artillery bombardment, they'd still be alive - and ready to fight.

Simultanously, using WMDs has serious drawbacks. To start with, only nuclear weapons have any degree of proven effectiveness - biological and chemical weapons as they exist today are not controllable enough (biological) or just plain ineffective (chemical). Gruesome, yes, but frankly not worth the effort. Nuclear warfare doctrine takes a book to fully analyze, but the basic problems are this: Nukes are indiscriminate. You can train soldiers to kill other soldiers only, and for the most part that works out okay, but nukes kill everyone, and lots. Then, you have lingering, widespread effects, not to speak of the image penalty you take once you start tossing nukes. The danger of a nuclear free-for-all can not be understated, and even though steps have been taken to mitigate this, you can be sure that "nuclear deterance" is really just a nicer way of saying "mutually assured destruction".

As if that wasn't bad enough, we're increasingly getting boggled down in 4th Generation assymmetric warfare. You can't nuke terrorists. We need people on the ground, and lots of them. Simultanously, conventional wars are fought all the time, and the combined arms tactics used today are mind-bogglingly complex. To answer your question, I pull out the word "flexibility". If all you have is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. A military force can have a forte, sure, but these days Air, Sea and Ground forces work together so closely that not being up to snuff in one area leaves you seriously vulnerable. We have to have all these toys because the other guys have them, too. You're sitting on a twisted form of the Prisoner's dilemma: Rationally, we all want peace. But we can't be vulnerable against possible attacks from X - who, by extension, can't be vulnerable against possible attacks from us.

"You put your gun down first!" "No, you!"

---

Now, how can robots help make war? First off, I don't expect the introduction of AI into warfare to shake things up quickly. I don't want to come off as arrogant, but even the smartest AI tank won't replace ten normal ones. A lot of the problems we deal with today are actually rather independant of the soldiers - communications and the fog of war, supply lines, the laws of physics. Could a robot tank possibly make shots faster and more accurate, figure out a better way over rough terrain or conduct longer missions because it doesn't need rest? Possibly, but these are incremental improvements and likely won't even show up in the first few generations of military AI, if they even stick around and work on it long enough to get something effective going. Humans are very smart machines. It'll be a while before we can build better ones even after we create something that is an artificially intelligent lifeform. Expect dogs and children, not digital Einsteins.

One often-cited aspect is human endurance. Robot tanks don't sleep! Robot jets can pull more Gs! Certainly true, but tanks today are rarely limited by crew endurance. They need fuel and maintenance as well as ammo, and the logistics trail it takes to provide that maybe gives you five instead of four tanks you can supply with the same amount of cargo capacity if you cut out the soldiers. Possibly more if you can also leave the maintenance and resupply to other robots and cut out the humans completely. Similarly, an AI jet could certainly pull more Gs, but we're also limited by the materials we have. Flying is extremely complicated, too. (Look how much work *human* pilots have to put in.) I do think that there's a lot of potential here, though.

---

So, what does all my rambling mean? (Certainly not coherent, more stream of consciousness, but oh well...) No big robot armies. Robots are going to be a very helpful resource - for human soldiers. Drones, powered armor, remote-control artillery fire - that's where we're going, with improved communications and recon as well as augmenting infantry soldiers. AIs could probably help us design much better gear, though.

And in 400 years, we'll have Bolos. Yay.

Gatac

[Zeke]

Excellent post, Gatac. I feel much smarter now. Just one thing I'd take issue with:

You're sitting on a twisted form of the Prisoner's dilemma: Rationally, we all want peace.

Unfortunately, that's just not something we can assume. Western civilization has mostly moved beyond the idea of waging war just to gain power (a very recent development -- it certainly wasn't true of Hitler). We're basically reactive now; even Russia and China are no longer into conquest, though that can always change. But right now we're facing groups like al Qaeda and people like Ahmedinejad who are very much active. They want Israel wiped off the map and Islamic rule extended. It doesn't count as wanting peace if the prerequisite is killing everybody else.

(I'm not breaking my own rule and trying to start a political debate, btw. These guys are on record about what they want, so repeating it is politically neutral.)

For that matter, what are we accomplishing by having armies of robots attack each other? A waste of resources, no question.

Uh... don't you mean what would we be accomplishing?

[Chancellor Valium]

Russia and China are not into conquest by military means.

When you're sitting comparatively a lot closer, you'd be surprised by how effective their current conquest of Europe is going, and they haven't had to lose a single soldier in doing so.

[Nate the Great]

I guess the "what are we accomplishing" is referring to the hypothetical robots waging war in all of our minds while we have this discussion.

I have a nice long rant all formed in my mind, but that would be stepping on somebody's toes. Suffice to say that I'm amazed that we've been letting other people take advantage of American ethics for this long. The "needs of the many" mentality is perfectly valid for me.

[Nate the Great]

I guess the "what are we accomplishing" is referring to the hypothetical robots waging war in all of our minds while we have this discussion.

Three times I've tried coming up with a response of my political opinions, but I don't want to get burned again. E-mail if you're really interested.

[MaverickZer0]

'Even' human strength compared to what strength it is possible for machines to have. Either way, a sentient machine isn't going to automatically try and attack us all, laws or no.

[Gatac]

I should specify: Rationally, we don't want to fight. This equates to peace insofar as few people - who are, arguably, mentally disturbed - would get into a fight for no reason. (Note that "Those are my orders" counts as reason; also, people do not behave rationally under a variety of conditions such as extreme emotional states or intoxication.)

But generally, humans don't fight for no reason.

The thing about wars is that only rarely do the people who actually start these wars fight in them. This mitigates their feeling of personal risk - it's easier to make other people risk *their* lives for your goals. Hence, a rational human could start a war, trading lives for power or resources, but I do not think that makes him evil or sick - he's just disconnected from the consequences of his actions.

Try to teach a kid that he shouldn't break windows when you never punish him for that.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

If we start having robots fight our battles, how long will it be before we get to the point where even building the robots is wasteful of resources, and we get war computers and disintegration chambers?

[Gatac]

A good question, but that assumes we sink so far into warfare that we never get our space program in gear without ever fully destroying each other. I predict a societal collapse from lack of resources well before we reach that level of tech, OR we do the smart thing and spread to space first, which will effectively solve any resource problems we might have. Robotic warmachines do make more sense in a space application, but I'd say that likely leaves us with Berserker-esque self-building armies. The Star Trek "computer doomsday" scenario, while evocative, would require that the scenario be constructed that way - it doesn't seem like a likely evolution of fighting tactics, because the solution requires a lot of resources. Resources I'd sooner spend on more weapons rather than trusting my enemy to adopt a similarly wasteful, self-defeating technology. My instinct would be to fight until I can't, at which point my society would be so depleted that it'd leave us in the dark ages. If I adopt any enlightened position here, it would be that war has to stop. Then again, if we talk about an alien species that does not have a concept of "peace", this might work, but we're humans and we do have that concept. That makes this particular episode a bit better for me, because it makes the societies more alien, but it lacks that human analogue.

But feel free to disagree.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

"Effectively?" Doesn't it cost like ten billion just for the fuel for a Moon mission? (Please don't supply the real number, it doesn't matter)

I was just being facetious, at least in part. My wish is just that we nuke each other away as examples of unworthy societies before we get sucked into a decades-long ground war.

Dark ages, hehe. Reminds me of an old Dave Barry gag. It's too long to relate here, but it's a hummer.

[Gatac]

Our fuel costs are at the very extreme now, because multi-stage rockets have an atrocious weight-to-payload ratio. Near future technology like a beanstalk (aka space elevator) would make this considerably cheaper. Heck, I can't even imagine a sensible method to get stuff into orbit that would be *more* expensive than what we're using now.

Once you're in orbit, things get much easier. Relatively speaking, of course. They'll still be hard, but it'll be a different set of problems.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

I go with Neelix and say "orbital tether."

[Gatac]

Also, what's that about nuking each other? The whole volountary human extinction movement worries me - I see conservation of nature in an "enlightened self-interest" kind of way, where we should conserve nature to sustain our existence as mankind. In a way, I believe that the zeroeth law of robotics should be our maxim - we may not harm humanity, or through inaction allow humanity to come to harm.

It makes sense to maximize our efforts at energy conservation and environmental protection so we can use Earth's biosphere for as long as possible. It makes sense to spread out onto other planets because Earth's resources are limited. I think a lot of human thinking is held back by a sort of denial of death - what use is personal power to you if you're going to die anyway? Long-term planning is called for, and that - as crazy as this may sound - means that the best way to get what we want is to be nice guys.

Besides, using nuclear weapons to wipe out an appreciable part of humanity will totally fuck up Earth's biosphere. Life will find a way to continue, sure, but that's not what treehugging is about, now, is it?

Also, I'd rather we save the nukes for when we meet nasty aliens. They are currently our best weapon against opponents with a higher technological level.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

There's no question that new conservation, recycling, etc. technologies, the phasing out of fossil fuels and so forth are the best (perhaps only) way we're going to survive another millennium as a non-stone-age society. The real question is whether society (especially the superpowers) will ever snap out of their self-indulging downward spiral and actually do something about it. I sincerely doubt it.

I wasn't wishing for destruction through nuclear conflagration, I was just pointing out that it'd be better than a slow crawl toward heat death.

[Gatac]

Here's some reasons why I don't think we should nuke each other, even in the face of humanity going down the drain.

First off, I've talked about the damage to Earth's biosphere. Plus, the survivors (and there will be survivors) will either be condemned to a dark age [if they're numerous] or to one of the slowest, nastiest deaths possible, widespread radiation poisoning [if they are few]. I'm opposed to the first one, because that's exactly what we're trying to prevent, and the second one on ethical grounds.

Second, self-determination. I'd much rather we back off on our moralistic laws on suicide and let the problem sort out itself as it gets worse. World is unbearable? Your call, Mister. Sign this scrip here, do you want your morphine overdose now or would you like to say goodbye to your loved ones first? This is harsh, I know, but it gives the people involved a choice rather than smacking them with nukes for the good of the planet. Plus, I can imagine that a lot of people in third-world countries do not actually care about the problems we as western civilisation have. Even if we all disappear of the face of the earth, they'll go on living their comparatively simple lifes - unless we poison the biosphere so massively that they can't farm or have herds. Nukes - well, they're sorta made to fuck up the biosphere, if you get my drift.

Third, the problem may, in fact, be self-correcting. As we get closer to the endgame, new technology may yet be developed that allows us to escape or at least use a new resource for a time. Lower population levels (re: suicide; I don't know if births would go up or down in light of the crisis, but I assume that we'll head downwards overall, at least in the western world) will lighten the load on nature and our resources. This is in fact the only similarity I have with VHE - I agree that, barring any near-future tech jumps that allow us to leave Earth, humanity is best served by sizing down some. However, I think depression and personal choice is at least as effective as preaching the "Kill yourself for the good of the planet" claptrap, plus it feels to me morally superior because you're not trying to convince people to kill themselves, merely providing a safe and painless way to do it.

Fourth, of course, nuking people has awful connotations associated with war. It doesn't matter if those people wanted to die (and good luck proving that), you've attacked another, sovereign country (or even yourself) with a weapon of mass destruction. Essentially, you're not trying to kill people, but a country, and that brings all side of nasty philosophical baggage, not the least of which would be that the few nuclear powers we have (seven, I think) would - for total human extinction - have to nuke everyone else first, at which point the justified question will arise whether they will actually kill themselves, too, after they've reduced the human population to 2 billion or less, which - as the VHE says - is in fact a far more sustainable population size than the 6+ billion we have now. Also, who gets to decide if you want to get nuked into oblivion? President, parliament, kings? Popular vote? How do you deal with dissidents? Are you going to kill people who adamantly don't want to die just because they happen to live nearby people who do want to die? Would that be a simple majority, 2/3rds, or is there a certain percentage of people where you have a sort of veto cutoff? What about neighbouring countries?

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

I never suggested a survey of:

"Would you like to be killed as part of an effort to ensure the survival of the human race by lessening the demand for natural resources?"

That's idiotic. I was just suggesting that heat death will create centuries of people miserable for their entire lifetimes. That's not humane.

Let the problem sort itself out? How do you anticipate that working out? That's what I meant by heat death. The gap between rich and poor will get bigger and bigger if current trends continue. What do you propose as a solution for this? A law that says, "the salaries and benefits given to senior management of corporations can be no more than X percent of the net annual profit of the corporation. Everything else has to be spread out amongst all of the employees." Good luck getting that one passed. How about the United Nations doing something along the lines of a global minimum wage? Uh, yeah, right.

[Gatac]

The "humane" part got me thinking about something else: With improved DNA screening, we can quite probably identify every major genetic ailment prior to birth in the near future. I know that this straddles the general abortion debate, but here's the rub: I believe that there's a choice there, and that it must be left to the parents. I believe people when they tell me that they love their children no matter what, but I find it harder to swallow when they say that if they had a choice, they'd rather stick with a differently-abled child than a healthy one. Even further along this line, you find people who intend to intentionally cause genetic disorders in their kids (for example, I've seen people advocating induced dwarfism), and here's where I draw the line. I don't get these people at all - I understand the "I want a healthy child" and the "Well, life's a gamble" crowd, but why *cripple* their children? That seems excessively cruel.

Of course, we then get to the question of whether society at large can even afford to care for differently-abled people, and whether they are a necessary part of society. (Not the people as individuals, but as being differently-abled.) It could be that we slowly drift into an Eugenics-esque era where we slowly get a grip on the genome of the next generation while advanced prosthetics and new treatments deal with existing cases. I don't think it's a bad idea, either. It does seem that for everyone who loudly proclaims that they are proud of their disability (and I think that's okay, too), there's a couple more who'd really like to walk, talk, see and think like what we define as "normal". Then again, we run into biodiversity issues and all that further claptrap, so I don't think there'll be easy answers.

---

Now to the heat death. I presume you mean the one of earth's ecosystem. Well, yes, that could be a problem, but they might find a solution. Maybe it takes living on a hot hellhole before you can seriously consider ways to protect yourself, but I wouldn't discount mankind's ingenuity + a problem + time. Also, shouldn't these people be able to decide for themselves whether they want to live? If the situation becomes truly inhospitable, we'll just die out, but before that there's a whole range of adaptions we can make. Indigenous people in Africa and Australia deal with blistering heat all the time, living at the edge of human survivability. Everything hotter than that will just plain not sustain human life.

I think this is another choice we must leave to the parents. Alternatively, provide the safe suicide option for people already living in that age.

---

When I said "Let the problem sort out itself", I meant making safe suicide available to everyone. I wasn't talking economics, but if you want to, okay.

Times are a-changin', as the song goes. International economy is going several wild ways, none of which could be predicted in the long term. To name but one example, the whole copyright debacle (viz: Internet "piracy") is changing economic realities as we speak. Norway just declared iTunes illegal under their laws, and if you told someone who's been in a coma for ten years, you'd have to explain what iTunes is. It'd blow his mind.

Similarly, the old globalism "We'll just outsource it to India" is running into problems, too, as the traditional outsourcing countries become more affluent themselves. China is rising quickly, and they have a goddamn space program now. Who knows where they'll be in 20 years? Who knows what's going to happen to our oil-dependant economies?

Redistribution of wealth has never worked. I firmly believe that the only way to deal with this is to raise the poverty line so high that everyone has a home, food and Internet access. This may sound basic, but it'll benefit us immeasurably - not only is it the humane thing to do, it also gives us access to literally billions of minds that went untapped for their full potential. Smart people are born everywhere. Give them access to knowledge and I think we'll have a few scientific revolutions ahead. Not the least of which is that access to the Internet is the ultimate in expression of free speech and commerce - that's why we must fight to protect it from those who are looking to turn it into another TV - or censor it. Viva la revolucion, brother!

How to drive this surge, you ask? Post-scarcity. We're all trekkers, so I'll say "replicator" and you know what I mean and what that implies. Don't laugh yet, we're getting there, too. Rapid prototyping is becoming more rapid and less prototyping as people are discovering that you can actually use such techniques to build useful stuff. Biologists are using rebuilt printers to build complex multi-cell organs from cloned cells. There's a proposal for a 3D printer large enough to build a *house* out there.

The future's a-comin', and it'll be bright. Can't stop the signal and all that feel-good stuff.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

I saw the article about induced dwarfism, and I have to agree. You want a dwarf kid, adopt one. You want a blind kid, adopt one. It's not like the orphanages are running a shortage or anything.

Uh, yeah, I'll probably get flamed for that one, but I felt that this thread, which started a few dozen half-ideas ago has gotten a little too serious and needed levity.

No, my "heat death" refers to the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and the rich getting fatter and the poor starving to death faster. At the same time, the West is supporting a large portion of the rest of the world at a rate that only allows a certain number to be helped. Specifically I refer to the Hundred Dollar Computer project. Uh, dudes, get the entire world eating two real meals a day and access to clean water before you start giving away cheap hand-crank computers, okay? For a hundred dollars you could feed a person for a couple months on a minimal rice-and-clean-water diet, right? And still have money left over for innoculations, penecillin, etc.

As for global warming, we should've been halfway through a global program to totally remove all dependency on oil (as a power source) by now. I'm not joking. With making non-oil plastic as a second goal.

To return to Asimov's Laws (amazingly a lighter topic than the current one :)), I don't think anyone posulated a reason for having robots operate on any sort of "intelligent" level.

[Gatac]

Yeah, adopt blind or deaf orphans! Not only do you not introduce another disabled child into the world, you're also giving love to a kid that's unlikely to be adopted otherwise.

My bad for the seriousness. I'm just a raging future-lover and can't help myself.

The laptop/humanitarian aid thing is tricky: we've made much of the third world dependant upon our charity. The red cross is totally undercutting local farmers with its food packages, while international business ripping off the locals encourages growing cash crops, which leads to more dependance on foreign aid. These are artifacts of colonialism that are very hard to undo. On the other hand, while I do approve of handing out laptops - *everybody* will need to learn how to use computers if they want to deal with the modern world -, this can't be at the expense of other, more pressing problems, such as the medical problems you mentioned.

The problem with getting rid of oil is that oil is handy. Energy density is high, and that energy can also easily be liberated and used. We need some sort of chemical energy storage for the near future; hydrogen works, but we need a better way of manufacturing it. Some developments in batteries look promising, too, as do ultracapacitators. Plastics without oil would be hard, but I'm sure we can replace plastics with other materials, like the various experimental configurations of carbon people are working on.

Intelligent is a difficult word; how intelligent are animals? Are they sentient/sapient? Psychology isn't nearly mature enough to deal with this. Maybe we should say what we do need: We need flexibility, ability to learn, complex pattern recognition and such, which looks like it could be done with fuzzy logic. Of course, fuzzy logic implies neural networks, which are modelled on how we think our brain works, so what comes out at the other end may emerge as intelligent even if we didn't design it to. That's what self-evolving machines are all about.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

Yeah, computers are a necessary component of the modern world, but if I could wave a magic wand and get rid of the Internet in exchange for eliminating poverty and easily-cured disease all across the world, I would. So would you.

I'm a full advocate of the "teach a man to fish, don't give a man a fish" philosophy. Anything other than the "teach a man a fish" isn't solving any problems. Not one. All it's doing is slapping bandages on a wound that won't heal without something better.

Okay, animal souls are something I don't want to go into. That's a can of worms I want locked up nice and tight. This thread has enough those as it is.

[Gatac]

I'd rather have both the Internet and a reasonable standard of living for everyone.

Fully agreed on the "fish" metaphor. But that's also what makes net access - and, by extension, education/information - so important.

Yes, let's leave out the soul discussion.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

Okay, what can the Internet give poverty-stricken denizens that a decent school system (including computers) can't do better?

This is a philosophical discussion involving personal opinion, so "both" is a valid answer, I suppose, but for me yes-or-no implies yes-OR-no, not yes-AND-no.

[Gatac]

The school system is actually a more controversial (in my mind) problem than you might think. I would much prefer giving children the opportunity to tackle prepared "units" of knowledge at their own pace, plus whatever else they want to know, then let them take tests to earn something like a GED at a fairly young age and move them into an apprenticeship-esque situation where they can start learning on the job fairly early, maybe 14-ish. This sounds counter-intuitive as hell, I know, but institutionalized education has some very real problems; read John Taylor Gatto's Underground History of American Education, for example - you may not agree with his conclusions, but he does cite a lot of historical information and makes a lot of criticisms that seem to be hard to refute. Among the most disturbing ones is the idea that a lot of the shortcomings of the Western educational system, such as it is, are not bugs, but features, like adapting a way of teaching children to read that actually retards their ability to pick up new words. Scary stuff.

I have no near-future plans for raising children, because I believe that that would require me to have a degree of financial independance so I can homeschool them effectively. I don't think teachers are evil or anything silly like that, but I do believe that I could provide a better learning environment myself than a school. However, I also admit that my research in this topic has been less than thorough, and I'm liable to refine or even change my opinion until the actual decision needs to be made. I also realize that homeschooling is far from being the best for everyone, but I do think we need to encourage it and slowly reduce the burden on public schools, as well as take a few serious looks at the curriculum.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

Okay, the shortcomings of the modern American school system is a topic for another day. I ain't touchin' it.

I gotta wonder what the record is for "topic that's wandered furthest from the original in the same thread."

[MaverickZer0]

Why bother with a record? Some other thread will just go and break it, and how would the first thread feel <i>then</i>? Huh? Huh? Did you ever think about the threads' <i>feelings</i> before you said that? Huh?

Haha. ;p

[Nate the Great]

Well, there is a difference between "oh, here's a random topic, since I'm bored with this one," and "oh, that's interesting, let's talk about it in a new direction."

Cow to phone to paint to marshmallows is random.
Cow to leather to pleather to spandex to superheroes is linked.

I meant the later category.

[PointyHairedJedi]

To get back to the original question (not that robot armies of death aren't fun), I think the concept of a set of "Laws of Robotics" is pretty much moot. Asimov, and I think for a while pretty much everyone else, assumed that once a computer reaches a certain level of informational complexity it will essentially become "alive". The famous test associated with machine intelligence is of course the Turing Test, but a program being able to pass this means nothing except that it has been given sufficient information in sufficient combinations to fool a human into thinking that it is another human. It by no means equates to sentience, just clever programming, and that's a problem - how would we truly be able to tell if a computer was thinking or not? Visions of Multivac, Colossus, Shalmanesser and Skynet are ultimately just fantasy, unrealisable because conciousness is not something that can be created, whole and complete, utterly constrained in everything it does by a set of arbitrarily imposed rules. Machines that think, if there ever are any, will be like us - blank slates that must be taught how to think from the ground up.

Of course, I have my doubts as to whether we will ever manage such a feat, as first we must understand how conciousness works in humans. It's a problem that I don't think will be solved in any of our lifetimes - though we may attain a vastly more complete understanding of the functioning of our brains, that won't tell us much about self-conciousness and free will. We may get machines that can learn how to do a few things, but I doubt there will ever be anything that has the amazing capacity and range of the human mind.

Also, I'd rather we save the nukes for when we meet nasty aliens. They are currently our best weapon against opponents with a higher technological level.
Clearly you have never seen Mars Attacks!. :p

[mudshark]

Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo, Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo
When I'm calling you
Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo, Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo
Will you answer too?
Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo, Oo-Oo-Oo-Oo... http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/mudshark58/smilies/note.gif

[Gatac]

Visions of Multivac, Colossus, Shalmanesser and Skynet are ultimately just fantasy, unrealisable because conciousness is not something that can be created, whole and complete, utterly constrained in everything it does by a set of arbitrarily imposed rules. Machines that think, if there ever are any, will be like us - blank slates that must be taught how to think from the ground up.

While I agree that creating consciousness is tricky, I believe it'll be relatively easy to "grow" once you have the hardware to get a decently-sized neural network going. Like I said, self-evolving systems have a lot of potential. Whether we can hardcode any "rules" is debateable, but there are already some suggestions, such as "benelovence", i.e. we must make sure that any intelligence we do end up creating is fundamentally friendly to mankind.

Of course, I have my doubts as to whether we will ever manage such a feat, as first we must understand how conciousness works in humans. It's a problem that I don't think will be solved in any of our lifetimes - though we may attain a vastly more complete understanding of the functioning of our brains, that won't tell us much about self-conciousness and free will. We may get machines that can learn how to do a few things, but I doubt there will ever be anything that has the amazing capacity and range of the human mind.

The "ever" is a dangerous thing. Saying something can't be done because you can't do it is shortsighted at best. Also, I know that it is possible to create something intelligent - after all, there's, you know, *us*. Once we understand the chemistry of neurons well enough to emulate one and manage to pack in enough nodes into a system that they are roughly equal to the amount of neurons we have, we should be able to start writing the first primitive self-evolving software and have it undergo rapid evolution towards more complex behaviour.

I think the real question is not whether this is feasible, there are over six billion of us walking around with just that kind of computer in our skull, but the more interesting questions are what kind of intelligence you will create in this way. In a lot of ways, we are who we are because of what came before us - how can we tell what will result from feeding the budding AI on what we *think* is the best way to grow an intelligence? We might be breeding a true alien that remains completely incomprehensible to us - the problem shifts if it becomes intelligent enough to analyze and understand *us*, but then you have the boogieman of an AI that's smarter than us. It will be able to talk to us, but we won't know what's going on inside of it. (AI that we can fully analyze and understand is likely to not be very useful, though...unless you're breeding artificial insects.)

That'll be a few interesting conversations, I think.

Clearly you have never seen Mars Attacks!. :p

Oh, I have, it's one of my favorite movies. However, we can not assume that alien malefactors have any specific anti-nuclear technology and just give up here, because nukes are still the most destructive weapons we have and therefore our best shot. If nukes don't work, we're probably screwed. I fully blame Hollywood for the "The aliens are immune to nuclear weapons" trope - we can't hope to have some deus ex machine weakness in the attackers, therefore our best bet is brute force, and nukes are the best brute force weapons we have, plus we have a lot of them. If the aliens do happen to have a weakness we can exploit (and that seems reasonable; all the portrayals of superior aliens in Sci-Fi have dulled us to the fact that a human is an amazingly tough and resourceful animal, and likely to be far superior in at least one respect over the aliens) - more power to us.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

Okay, although I concede this whole "self-evolving" thing might be the best bet for a self-aware computer, I assert that this is EXACTLY what you don't want to happen. Think of Deep Thought. He wasn't even fully hooked up and he already knew about rice pudding and income tax! What's to stop a self-teaching computer from reaching the point of "these dirty bags of mostly water are so self-contradictory that they're not worth obeying"? I have no problem with an assembly line robot being able to figure out the most efficient way to perform an assembly line text, but you don't just give a robot total Internet access and step back.

[PointyHairedJedi]

The "ever" is a dangerous thing. Saying something can't be done because you can't do it is shortsighted at best. Also, I know that it is possible to create something intelligent - after all, there's, you know, *us*. Once we understand the chemistry of neurons well enough to emulate one and manage to pack in enough nodes into a system that they are roughly equal to the amount of neurons we have, we should be able to start writing the first primitive self-evolving software and have it undergo rapid evolution towards more complex behaviour.
I concede your point on "ever". However, you're making the assumption that neurons+chemistry=sentience (or their digital equivalents). Neuroscience has discovered many things to date about the way our brains work - from the broad sweep of which regions influence what, to the small end of the scale like neurotransmitter chemistry and the function of different cell types. But, and this is the huge but, none of it tells us anything more about conciousness than philosophy has been able to in the last two and a half thousand years.

The main question it comes down to is this: is conciousness purely a function of the brain? On the face of it, yes, but think a little harder. If we take it to be the case, then which part of the brain is responsible exactly? Is it somehow the case that 'conciousness' only happens when an animal with a big enough brain comes along? If so, why? Is conciousness instead not primarily a biological function, but more of a learned one? Or is our memory the primary factor?

The point is, no-one really has a clue, or for that matter any idea how to find out. Conversely perhaps it'll be attempts to create machine intelligences that'll give us some handle on how we ourselves think, but like I said I doubt that it'll happen in any of our lifetimes.


As an aside, I find it interesting that no-one has thus far touched upon the ethics of creating machine intelligence. One of the things about Trek that has consistently bugged me in nearly every show is what an incredibly laissaz-faire approach the otherwise fanatically ethical Federation takes toward the creation of artificial lifeforms (in the form of holograms, mostly). We had that whole thing with Data being judged to be 'human' legally, but what of Vic Fontaine and the EMH? To be fair though, it's not something that much SF covers at all, but it seems like it should.

[Hejira]

Okay, although I concede this whole "self-evolving" thing might be the best bet for a self-aware computer, I assert that this is EXACTLY what you don't want to happen. Think of Deep Thought. He wasn't even fully hooked up and he already knew about rice pudding and income tax! What's to stop a self-teaching computer from reaching the point of "these dirty bags of mostly water are so self-contradictory that they're not worth obeying"? I have no problem with an assembly line robot being able to figure out the most efficient way to perform an assembly line text, but you don't just give a robot total Internet access and step back.

You don't give a human child total Internet access and step back, either.

If computers/robots/machines/Tamagotchis ever reach the level of complexity that they can be self-aware, IMO they'd be as good as human, only with more batteries and less pooping. As such, anyone with a self-aware AI would pretty much be a parent, and some parents just suck. Others, though, are totally awesome.

Good parents teach their kids about morals, responsibility, and all that other stuff that stops most humans from going BSI* and killing everyone. I guess I just don't see the robotic sentience issue as any more different than organic sentience.

*B = Bat, and I = Insane.

[PointyHairedJedi]

A good point, following on from that, is that any machine intelligence would by necessity be patterned after our own; after all, what other model do we have?

[GreenFire1]

Um, self-aware robots? I thought this topic was about Asenion robots (viz. those that follow Asimov's laws). The biggest thing about Asimov robots is that they're objects. You can use them stupidly or evilly, or you can use them for productivity or comfort. An Asenion robot makes no decisions for itself - every single action is not only based on an order (or law), but can be mathematically predicted based on the situation and the nature of its active orders.

I've actually considered the value of another system of robot safety (a robot doesn't have morals, any more than a knife does) based on "standing orders." I'm not quite sure where I got the idea, but it's basically this - the robot's only intrinsic motivation is to follow orders. Now here's the neat part. Every robot is programmed to recognize all humans as having given a set of default orders, stuff like "don't harm me," "don't harm my property," et cetera. That's the basic idea of it. Anyone have their own ideas for robot security?

[Gatac]

Well, I think Asimov's rigidly-constructed robots are possible, but only after we've used self-evolving systems to get a better understanding of how workable AI organises itself. I'm sure military and government contractors will take an Asimov model - after all, they are completely predictable, or should be -, but the real world needs a cheaper, faster and smarter solution, even if it comes with some risks.

I like the idea of standing orders. Especially since the "human" in Asimov's Laws should really be corrected to "sapient being".

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

One wonders what amounts to a valid Turing Test in the 24th century. I think that a key requirement would be the creation of a process that the computer didn't already know.

[Gatac]

Actually, I think the chief question is, where does "cheating the Turing test" end and "actually being sapient" begin?

Gatac

[Derek]

When it can't be turned off.

[Gatac]

I can turn off any sapient being; the matching tool is called "gun".

Gatac

[mudshark]

There's another way (http://www.intriguing.com/mp/_pictures/compdiff/16tonwei.jpg), of course...

[Nate the Great]

Okay, dead does not equal inactive.

Define sentience.

[Derek]

I can turn off any sapient being; the matching tool is called "gun".

You know, even as I posted my statement, I figured someone was going to say that you can turn off humans. But there's a difference between destroying a sapient being and turning off a specific application in a fully-functional well-working computer.

How about this: "When it isn't affected."

[Gatac]

Ah. I concede that point, then.

Still, going transhuman, won't we be able to make a human brain capable of safe shutdown and restart? Admittedly, this will likely involve cybernetic implants or , at the very least, advanced medical treatment, and even then it'll probably be metastable. (Cryogenics and whatnot.)

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

Talk about drifting topics...

Okay, cyrogenics/carbonite/instant dehydration cubes and whatnot are topics for their own thread. This thread is robotics and machine intelligence.

Last time I checked, the poll was fifty-fifty. Any comment? Expected? Unexpected? Surprising? Not surprising?

[PointyHairedJedi]

I suppose on the face of it it may be taken as surprising that a bunch of nerds such as we wouldn't overwhelmingly say "yes", but then anyone who actually knows this site knows what a fractious bunch we are really. ;)

[Derek]

No, we aren't.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

2/5 of us are.

[Chancellor Valium]

Fractious? The people on this site are about as fractious as two sleeping Trakenites.

In any case, I think this discussion has reached a state of decay, and we have come full circle to the questions I raised on page one, myself...

[Nate the Great]

To recap, Val's points are:

1) Do robots count as self-aware, and/or as living?
2) Do we have the right to control what they think?

As of now:

1) No.
2) Yes...well, sort of. Control HOW they think, control HOW MUCH they can think, that sort of thing.

[mudshark]

Last time I checked, the poll was fifty-fifty. Any comment? Expected? Unexpected? Surprising? Not surprising?

What was the question, again?

[Chancellor Valium]

To recap, Val's points are:

1) Do robots count as self-aware, and/or as living?
2) Do we have the right to control what they think?

As of now:

1) No.
2) Yes...well, sort of. Control HOW they think, control HOW MUCH they can think, that sort of thing.


Thank's for the recap, II.

Though to add my final point:

Do we even have the right to create such things?

And would you care to elaborate on your answers?

[Nate the Great]

Again I reinterate: Please no II! II is Roman for two! I'm not a two! If you can't say "Nate," use "NTG."

1) Well, robots today don't count as self-aware OR living because I'd define those two terms as:
Self-aware: Posessing the knowledge of who and what you are, what you can and can't do (in general), and knowing what is required to stay functional.
Living: Experiencing a life. "Life" being defined as a state of experience and growth, influencing other lives.
2) Well, to use a human analogy (and what else do we have, really?), we already influence how each other thinks. Media, hackneyed saying, fivers, etc. are all used in an attempt to make each other "wear our shoes," for lack of a better term. If there really are computers that satisfy 1), then we have the right to influence their thoughts, and they'd have the right to influence ours.
3) Okay, put on your explorer hats and prepare to dash out of the Temple of Doom, dudes and dudettes! Uh, who would take away our "right" to create thinking robots? After all, if we can create machines capable of genuine thought, that'd be the final nail in the coffin of evolution. God would be superfluous. Souls wouldn't exist. After all, if mechanical machines can think, then so can organic machines, and we're just the result of millions of years of trial and error by random forces trying to slap a thinking machine together.

[Derek]

To recap, Val's points are:

1) Do robots count as self-aware, and/or as living?
2) Do we have the right to control what they think?

1. No.
2. By necessity we must. We are the ones who enable computers to think on any level. Otherwise they do not think. Telling a computer how to think is a form of controlling, but the term conjures up inappropriate imagery. We direct what they think. They do things according to the program we provide. Will that ever change? I don't know, but if it does it will be a fundamentally different piece of software than anything we have yet written.

Do we even have the right to create such things?
I don't see why we shouldn't, but for opposite reasons than Nate. We already create intelligences as powerful as our own through our begetting, and few people have problems with that. And the idea of creating (as opposed to begetting) something in our own image is a powerful one. Some might say it smacks of playing God, but ... &lt;insert long, uninteresting, theological discussion here&gt;.

3) Okay, put on your explorer hats and prepare to dash out of the Temple of Doom, dudes and dudettes! Uh, who would take away our "right" to create thinking robots? After all, if we can create machines capable of genuine thought, that'd be the final nail in the coffin of evolution.
Okay, the "final nail" sounds like it would kill off evolution as a viable theory, but that obviously isn't what you mean.

God would be superfluous. Souls wouldn't exist. After all, if mechanical machines can think, then so can organic machines, and we're just the result of millions of years of trial and error by random forces trying to slap a thinking machine together.
1. I don't see how a thinking machine would make God superfluous. If anything it would support the idea that only intelligences can create intelligence.
^ Gah. That just sounds like I'm asking for an origins debate, but I'm really REALLY not.

2. Souls are a loose term that gets defined too many ways to treat intelligently. Suffice to say a thinking machine would not make everyone suddenly say, "Well, I guess souls don't exist after all," but only expand the debate as to whether machines have them too.

[Gatac]

Difficult.

Currently, robots are neither self-aware nor living. I can see how both would be possible, though.

I'm not certain you can "control" a self-aware robot. You can give him guidelines or orders, but I think the point is that a self-aware robot doesn't need to be controlled - it can make it's own judgements. It is in our best interests to provide a framework of principles so that its judgement benefits us, but creating a robot that is both fully self-aware and directly under our thumb is inefficient and cruel - it could just as well be done by a less-developed robot. Like I said, if we get there, we'll *want* a robot that can think (relatively) freely. Heck, there's good money riding on making it think as free as we can - who knows, AI may come up with some interesting ideas that a human would never get.

Do we have the right to create AI, if we can? Yes. The potential benefit for mankind is far too great to just outright ban AI; I'm sure there'll be some squabbling over what you can and can't do, but it's becoming clearer to me that technological development cannot be regulated as tightly as some people think. If you can come up with an idea, somebody else can, too. And there's always people willing to break laws if they think they'll benefit from it. Unless you want to go around assassinating everyone who develops a workable AI, you won't stop it. From this, I guess it doesn't follow directly that we have a *right* to do this - but I do think it follows that we have a *responsibility* to do it correctly.

Who says God can't exist if we create AI? We've archieved so much, and He apparently hasn't seen fit to smite us yet. When the bible says that God created us in His image, it makes me think that what He really wants is for His children to grow up - like any good parent.

Same thing with souls. I don't believe in them, but I see no reason why AI would disprove them. First off, we don't know what a soul is, so it could very well be that with creating AI, we also create souls. Even if we don't, all we've proven is that you can make intelligence without souls, but that doesn't mean we don't have them. It's the same argument as saying that we share common ancestors with other primates somehow makes us less special and "soulless". It just doesn't logically follow.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

Yeah, I meant, "coffin of creationism." My bad.

Okay, maybe we should define "control what robots think." It suddenly occurs to me that we can't really do that. Maybe we can establish directives about what a robot can DO, but think? How? Lines of programming that say in essense "stop all processing once harming a human is presented as a course of action"?

Actually, if we're talking about current robots, they aren't even close. Every single robot we have these days either follows a complicated chain of instructions (maybe the chain branches, but true thought requires the ability to leave the chain entirely) or is basically a complicated remote control toy. Even Asimo is in the latter category right now.

[Chancellor Valium]

Again I reinterate: Please no II! II is Roman for two! I'm not a two! If you can't say "Nate," use "NTG."
Then don't call me Val ;)

'Val' is short for 'Valentine', which is neither my real name nor the name I go by anywhere on the web.

'Valium'/'CV', or if you prefer formality, 'Chancellor' will do nicely.

1) Well, robots today don't count as self-aware OR living because I'd define those two terms as:
Self-aware: Posessing the knowledge of who and what you are, what you can and can't do (in general), and knowing what is required to stay functional.
Living: Experiencing a life. "Life" being defined as a state of experience and growth, influencing other lives.

I thought that this thread was rather more forward-looking than just the present...?

2) Well, to use a human analogy (and what else do we have, really?), we already influence how each other thinks. Media, hackneyed saying, fivers, etc. are all used in an attempt to make each other "wear our shoes," for lack of a better term. If there really are computers that satisfy 1), then we have the right to influence their thoughts, and they'd have the right to influence ours.
Yeah, it's all a method of control, man!

Seriously, do we have the right to PROGRAMME GUIDELINES into a thinking brain.

3) Okay, put on your explorer hats and prepare to dash out of the Temple of Doom, dudes and dudettes! Uh, who would take away our "right" to create thinking robots? After all, if we can create machines capable of genuine thought, that'd be the final nail in the coffin of evolution. God would be superfluous. Souls wouldn't exist. After all, if mechanical machines can think, then so can organic machines, and we're just the result of millions of years of trial and error by random forces trying to slap a thinking machine together.

Nope. Assuming there is a God, what right do we have to create life? Surely it would be His divine right, and His alone? Obviously I can't prove this, but neither can you disprove it. And call me Pascal, but I'd rather not risk it.

There's also the question of whether we can create life itself, and also, why do we *need* androids and sentient robots?

Re: the second part of part three: Prove Godless evolution to me without reference to the phenomenal (see also: Kant).
:)

[Gatac]

Then don't call me Val ;)

Seriously, do we have the right to PROGRAMME GUIDELINES into a thinking brain.


Well, we teach our kids not to kill their playground buddies to get their toys. Laugh all you want, but what reason would a blank slate AI have to think that it's bad to kill others?

Then again, there's a difference between having Asimov-esque laws hardcoded into your brain or being taught morality.



Nope. Assuming there is a God, what right do we have to create life? Surely it would be His divine right, and His alone? Obviously I can't prove this, but neither can you disprove it. And call me Pascal, but I'd rather not risk it.



Forgive me if this sounds silly, but by the same token, I could live in mortal fear of ever cracking an emu egg because I believe the space cats will eat me if I do. I don't know if there's a God; what I do know is that He hasn't really left us any concrete guidelines on the topic. (And that's under the assumption that we believe the Bible to be His word - bring other religions into it and you'll be lucky if you can agree on why the sun shines.)

There's also the question of whether we can create life itself, and also, why do we *need* androids and sentient robots?

Ask a medieval Samurai what you can do with an autoloading rifle, or the IBM guys in the 50s what the hell a microchip is good for. If there's one pattern in technology, it's that a lot of what we know came from cocking about and doing things because we could. In a lot of cases, we had the invention first and then found out about the neat things we could do with it.

Re: the second part of part three: Prove Godless evolution to me without reference to the phenomenal (see also: Kant).
:)

Evolution is easy to show, it's abiogenesis that's hard.

Gatac

[Chancellor Valium]

Well, we teach our kids not to kill their playground buddies to get their toys. Laugh all you want, but what reason would a blank slate AI have to think that it's bad to kill others?

Then again, there's a difference between having Asimov-esque laws hardcoded into your brain or being taught morality.
Exactly the difference I was referring to :)

Forgive me if this sounds silly, but by the same token, I could live in mortal fear of ever cracking an emu egg because I believe the space cats will eat me if I do.

Better watch those space cats - when riled they're pretty dangerous. And they have *big* claws...

Seriously, difference is, space cats didn't create, if we follow the assumption that there is a God implicit in this particular end of the discussion, the emu egg in the first place.

I don't know if there's a God; what I do know is that He hasn't really left us any concrete guidelines on the topic. (And that's under the assumption that we believe the Bible to be His word

I'd say the teaching of Jesus was pretty damn clear, myself...

- bring other religions into it and you'll be lucky if you can agree on why the sun shines.)

I think the question would more be who put the sun there, who pushes it around, why it does, why it's not in any other shape or form, where it goes, and who slept with whom in order to create it...

Ask a medieval Samurai what you can do with an autoloading rifle,

Not the best advert for the advancement of technology, it must be said. But fundamentally, do we *need* an autoloading rifle? A musket will do just as well in the end.

or the IBM guys in the 50s what the hell a microchip is good for. If there's one pattern in technology, it's that a lot of what we know came from cocking about and doing things because we could. In a lot of cases, we had the invention first and then found out about the neat things we could do with it.

True, but when the M or the E word come into the question, suddenly you aren't just cocking about with the neat things you could do if you tweak this or that -the implications grow uncomfortably.

Evolution is easy to show, it's abiogenesis that's hard.

Without reference to the phenomenal?

[Nate the Great]

We have the right to teach our children, how are robots any different?

I don't think we need thinking robots, either.

Could we close the door on the whole creationism/evolutionism thing, please?

[Gatac]

Okay, point by point...

- Point taken.
- Who says the space cats didn't create the emu egg? Their ways are wise and terrible. In a wider point, why does being the creator matter? For the sake of the argument, we assume that the space cats have some sort of interested in unbroken emu eggs and have the power to punish you if you go against their wishes. The scenario does not require that they actually created anything.
- While I don't claim to be a biblical scholar, I must admit that I don't recall any part of the bible that says "Thou shalt not create an artificially intelligent machine". Everything more metaphorical than that is, I would argue, subject to the interpretation of the reader. (A notorious problem of text in general.)
- There's a couple things even I don't want to know about the sun.
- Okay, Samurai were a bit luddite-ish, but I don't think they were stupid. If they'd had the tech to build reliable autoloaders and the infrastructure to support them, they'd have done so. Autoloading rifles, by the way, are an integral part of modern military tactics. In a wider context (considering the idea of an autoloading machine gun, as it was originally constructed by Hiram Maxim), it forms the basis of what we today consider an effective infantry fighting force. Even if there'd been no autoloaders, we wouldn't have stopped at muskets. Consider that Germany spent much of WW2 fielding bolt-action rifles, which - while nowhere near as impressive as autoloaders - would totally devastate an army dependant on single-shot breech loaders. Don't even start on muzzle-loading muskets - helpless case, especially when we assume muskets use the (much inferior) black powder rather than the smokeless powders used from the 19th Century on.
- Dude, microchips are directly at fault for affordable personal computing, the internet and the rise of IT. I don't see Evolution getting much better at making your head spin with implications.
- Considering that my understanding of Kant's "phenomenon" is that we can't perceive things as they actually are, I see no way anything can ever be explained without resorting to your observations of the world rather than some mystical knowledge of the true nature of reality. Everything we know, we perceived first. The challenge seems meaningless to me.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

Okay, color me lost. Moving on...

[Chancellor Valium]

@Nate: Any particular shade?
Okay, point by point...

- Point taken.
- Who says the space cats didn't create the emu egg? Their ways are wise and terrible. In a wider point, why does being the creator matter? For the sake of the argument, we assume that the space cats have some sort of interested in unbroken emu eggs and have the power to punish you if you go against their wishes. The scenario does not require that they actually created anything.
You mean aside from their total lack of relevant technology or indeed plain old conventional wisdom? Or the fact that their sublight craft would take 45bn years to get to Sirius, let alone our system. Finally, they're cats. Why do the hard work when someone else can, and then you can simply steal it off them at minimal effort?

- While I don't claim to be a biblical scholar, I must admit that I don't recall any part of the bible that says "Thou shalt not create an artificially intelligent machine". Everything more metaphorical than that is, I would argue, subject to the interpretation of the reader. (A notorious problem of text in general.)

Provided you don't understand the context and background to the text, yes. Factor those in, however, and the choices of meaning narrow a lot. Fact is, there's a lot of people you would upset over this, either for being unnatural or unnecessary, or too expensive for the bother, or simply opening too many uncomfortable parallels with fiction, or because of the ethical implications.

- There's a couple things even I don't want to know about the sun.
Having (not) gone for a look, I can tell you with complete (lack of) authority that it is in fact (not) pushed about by a Scarab beetle.

- Okay, Samurai were a bit luddite-ish, but I don't think they were stupid. If they'd had the tech to build reliable autoloaders and the infrastructure to support them, they'd have done so. Autoloading rifles, by the way, are an integral part of modern military tactics. In a wider context (considering the idea of an autoloading machine gun, as it was originally constructed by Hiram Maxim), it forms the basis of what we today consider an effective infantry fighting force. Even if there'd been no autoloaders, we wouldn't have stopped at muskets. Consider that Germany spent much of WW2 fielding bolt-action rifles, which - while nowhere near as impressive as autoloaders - would totally devastate an army dependant on single-shot breech loaders. Don't even start on muzzle-loading muskets - helpless case, especially when we assume muskets use the (much inferior) black powder rather than the smokeless powders used from the 19th Century on.
Still, what benefit did all these developments in weaponry from the time of Napoleon onwards give us that was positive? There is an argument that weapon development is a direct cause of the horrors of WWI...

- Dude, microchips are directly at fault for affordable personal computing, the internet and the rise of IT. I don't see Evolution getting much better at making your head spin with implications.
Well, in broad terms, yes, but I was referring more specifically to ethically and morally...

- Considering that my understanding of Kant's "phenomenon" is that we can't perceive things as they actually are, I see no way anything can ever be explained without resorting to your observations of the world rather than some mystical knowledge of the true nature of reality. Everything we know, we perceived first. The challenge seems meaningless to me.

Exactly. So are our perceptions right? How can we tell? The point was that we are far from omnipotent...

[Gatac]

- Without starting a big religious debate, I find felionoid aliens with over-c drive tech and some sort of horribly powerful weaponry in our orbit a lesser probability abberation than an omnipotent being...

- That's not my point. Yes, knowing the historical background, several things are easier to interpret in the bible. However: a) that doesn't mean it is actually being interpreted correctly *now*, b) it still doesn't say anything we could reasonably interpret to concern AI, c) the opinions of the people you mention are not derived from the bible, hence it is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you believe in the bible or not when you're against AI, because AI hatred is not a tenet of your religion.

- Heretic! It's clearly being pulled by a winged horse!

- Aside from being a nice strawman (Technology can be used for evil? The horror!), I'd actually argue that autoloaders are part of a positive overall trend in military manners toward smarter, fewer, more trained soldiers. Obviously, war is still hell, but atleast they're not rounding up the farmers for a crusade where half will die marching on their way, not to mention being probably killed in actual combat for lack of training and equipment. I hate war as much as the next guy, but when it is fought, we should use the best weapons we have so it is over quickly and decided with the least loss of life. I'm not usually one to argue "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few", but take the use of nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki; it sucked, it sucked hard, and it was a horrible thing to do - but it doesn't remotely compare to the horror that would have been a conventional invasion of Japan.

- Ah, sorry. Misunderstood you. Is it ethically and morally right? I don't know, we're discussing that now, aren't we? You're sounding like it's a foregone conclusion of wrongness on the ethical/moral scale and just pursued for the potential scientific/economic perks. I'd disagree with that.

- Does being the product of an omnipotent creator (should we believe in Him) mean that, being less than omnipotent, we can't create life? That doesn't logically follow. Even statistically speaking, we don't have enough sample cases to say it's probably so. (Unless you're going for hardcore creationism, where God made every species individually.) It's a statement about as logically rigid as arguing that being able to create new life would make us omnipotent.

Gatac

[Chancellor Valium]

- Without starting a big religious debate, I find felionoid aliens with over-c drive tech and some sort of horribly powerful weaponry in our orbit a lesser probability abberation than an omnipotent being...
Without starting a religious debate, why? I'm not saying your wrong necessarily, but I'm curious why they would necessarily be more likely to exist than an omnipotent being. And for the record, their tech is appalling. Partly because it's all scavenged, partly the lack of opposable thumbs.

- That's not my point. Yes, knowing the historical background, several things are easier to interpret in the bible. However: a) that doesn't mean it is actually being interpreted correctly *now*,

...Unless you have a tradition of doctrine which has developed from before the Bible was compiled, and your belief structure was around at the time when it was all written, ensuring the passing on of knowledge about precisely what key passages me.

b) it still doesn't say anything we could reasonably interpret to concern AI,

It would be no more difficult than, say, extrapolating a logically highly probably position on AI from a Virtue Ethics standpoint, though...

The Tower of Babel could be seen as (very, very loosely) analogous (HTF do you spell this word?! Grr.) to AI. Granted, its not a perfect fit, but given that in all probability, no-one in Judaeism up until at least 70 AD would have in all probability had the faintest idea about an artificial mind...

c) the opinions of the people you mention are not derived from the bible, hence it is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you believe in the bible or not when you're against AI, because AI hatred is not a tenet of your religion.
How do you know they aren't derived from their interpretation? And the point is, from that interpretation you are going to pull out a whole can of worms...

- Heretic! It's clearly being pulled by a winged horse!

That's not a winged horse! It's the Butterfly of Chaos, trying to distract the Scarab from its sacral duty!

- Aside from being a nice strawman (Technology can be used for evil? The horror!), I'd actually argue that autoloaders are part of a positive overall trend in military manners toward smarter, fewer, more trained soldiers. Obviously, war is still hell, but atleast they're not rounding up the farmers for a crusade where half will die marching on their way, not to mention being probably killed in actual combat for lack of training and equipment.

Are we killing fewer, though, in an age of total war?

And as for 'crusades', I thought I'd point out, without entering into this equally lead-balloon-shaped subject, that the 'Crusades' were largely done by volunteers.

While I don't like the developments made in the French Revolutionary Wars (and Napoleon's 'tactics', if you could call them that...), yes, they involved many more men, but in some ways only took longer because the French had military strength but economic weakness by comparison to their enemies...

I hate war as much as the next guy, but when it is fought, we should use the best weapons we have so it is over quickly and decided with the least loss of life. I'm not usually one to argue "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few", but take the use of nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki; it sucked, it sucked hard, and it was a horrible thing to do - but it doesn't remotely compare to the horror that would have been a conventional invasion of Japan.

Really? You've seen that, have you?
And also, there are other ways to skin a space-cat...

- Ah, sorry. Misunderstood you. Is it ethically and morally right? I don't know, we're discussing that now, aren't we? You're sounding like it's a foregone conclusion of wrongness on the ethical/moral scale and just pursued for the potential scientific/economic perks. I'd disagree with that.

I'm saying that rightly or wrongly a lot of people will see it that way.

- Does being the product of an omnipotent creator (should we believe in Him) mean that, being less than omnipotent, we can't create life? That doesn't logically follow. Even statistically speaking, we don't have enough sample cases to say it's probably so. (Unless you're going for hardcore creationism, where God made every species individually.) It's a statement about as logically rigid as arguing that being able to create new life would make us omnipotent.

Gatac
The point was more about scientific hubris... *ducks pelting with rotten blowfish*

[Gatac]

- My take on Ockham's Razor, basically - an omnipotent being is the most complex assumption possible, therefore everything that is less complex has a greater chance of actually being true. I could drag the Second Law of Thermodynamics into the debate, but it really doesn't deserve that. I'll admit it's more bellyfeel than rigorous scientific examination.

- Which clearly hasn't happened with the Bible, what with its myriad translations and reinterpretations. Leaving aside the issue that the modern bible is a rather arbitary collection of texts the First Council of Nicaea decided should be in it - got pretty political back then, as I recall. I don't think it's the only example, either...Christianity has gone through some changes in the years, and while I'll admit that most are relatively minor, I'd also dispute that it's always been what it is today.

- The tower of babel? Hm, I can see your point, but that's extremely metaphorical, even by bible standards. I'd counter that the whole "Be fruitful and multiply" thing could be understood to mean the opposite, if we're operating on that level. I'm of the opinion that, if God can hand down His wisdom once, he can do it again. So either we're due for some errata or He doesn't care, because I have a hard time believing that an omniscient being couldn't foresee we'd get to that point. As for the 70 AD guys not understanding adaptive software, there could be something like "Do not seek to build a soul from clay". I doubt they would've gotten it, but they'd have carried it further - perhaps as a warning against witchcraft or something, it's certainly much more transparent than, say, Revelations -, and *that* would be a bible quote I could get behind as warning against AI.

- At that point, it's not interpretation, it's pulling things out of thin air. There's nothing in the bible that supports anything even remotely like an AI ban - if anything, it calls for a general anti-tech stance. That one's okay, but specifically AI?

- Cute little butterfly. At least it's not causing hurricanes this time.

- Uh, yeah, we're killing a whole buncha less people now, particularly relative to how many people there are now.

Fair enough on the crusades, but I understand that much of the kingdom-to-kingdom fighting was done using conscripted serfs led by a small core of knights and professional warriors.

As for wars taking longer then, let's not forget the advances in mobility we've made. You could blow Bonaparte's mind if you told him he could have thousands of well-trained soldiers deployed anywhere on Earth within 48 hours...

- I admit it's some speculation, but I'm hardly alone in that. The plans taking this into account were derived from experience in fighting the Japanese on other Pacific islands, and assuming that they'd be much more defensive still about their home islands. With estimates at about 12 million people dead for a conventional assault, I think you can make a very favorable analysis of the decision to use nuclear weapons. Of course, we can argue about how they were used...I'm just saying that I think a conventional invasion would have been much worse, based on our best knowledge of Japanese tactics and mindset at the time.

- No argument here. I'm interested in your opinion, though.

- Hubris? What hubris? Science is infallible! It is perfect! MWUAHAHAHAHA! *thunder and lightning*

...seriously, though. I understand, but we didn't get all the way up here by sitting in our caves and hoping for sunshine. We went out, we took risks, we won some and we lost some. There are no safe bets, and I think one of our strengths as a species is our dedication to ideas and taking risks to make them real. (Then again, we may just be boneheaded.)

Gatac

[Chancellor Valium]

- My take on Ockham's Razor, basically - an omnipotent being is the most complex assumption possible, therefore everything that is less complex has a greater chance of actually being true. I could drag the Second Law of Thermodynamics into the debate, but it really doesn't deserve that. I'll admit it's more bellyfeel than rigorous scientific examination.
I unbellyfeel this. But for the sake of Peace, Tranquility, and The Accursed Power of Zeke, perhaps it would be best to let sleeping metaphysical questions lie.

- Which clearly hasn't happened with the Bible, what with its myriad translations and reinterpretations. Leaving aside the issue that the modern bible is a rather arbitary collection of texts the First Council of Nicaea decided should be in it

Not so. The arguments for inclusion were in part that they fit in with Church doctrine (which, as founded upon Christ, if we take that stand-point that it is correct in this instance), and also to be authentic (of origin from at least a time roughly correct), apostolic (of origin with the writing of an apostle), etc. There is evidence that even before writing down, these works were handed down orally (or aurally?). If these are the most important things in your life, you make sure you memorise them perfectly...

There is quite clearly a development of doctrine going on from Paul onwards in the 40's AD, if not from earlier, as the Apostles spread the Word. The Acts of the Apostles also contains interesting nuggets of teaching, and it is interesting to note that Pliny et. al. paint a picture of Christianity which is very much in line with what is still the official stance(s) of the major Churches today...

- The tower of babel? Hm, I can see your point, but that's extremely metaphorical, even by bible standards. I'd counter that the whole "Be fruitful and multiply" thing could be understood to mean the opposite, if we're operating on that level. I'm of the opinion that, if God can hand down His wisdom once, he can do it again. So either we're due for some errata or He doesn't care, because I have a hard time believing that an omniscient being couldn't foresee we'd get to that point.

There is the old pseudo-joke about the man up to his ankles in water...

As for the 70 AD guys not understanding adaptive software, there could be something like "Do not seek to build a soul from clay". I doubt they would've gotten it, but they'd have carried it further - perhaps as a warning against witchcraft or something, it's certainly much more transparent than, say, Revelations -, and *that* would be a bible quote I could get behind as warning against AI.
But what would be the relevance to them? Besides, it might have been seen as unimportant, or indeed not central to the message of Good News and omitted by one of the Evangelists...

- At that point, it's not interpretation, it's pulling things out of thin air. There's nothing in the bible that supports anything even remotely like an AI ban - if anything, it calls for a general anti-tech stance. That one's okay, but specifically AI?
Possibly. If I was bothered to search the Bible and/or Church published documents for the last 2 millennia, I'm sure I could find a relevant quote somewhere.

It could also be argued (and please, let's drop this particular one at this particular comment - I implore you on bended knee not to continue this particular discussion!) that if man has not the right to take away life, then he also doesn't have the right to give it...But as I said this is a can of worms that arguing over will only bring negative effects, IMO.

- Cute little butterfly. At least it's not causing hurricanes this time.

...Just trying to crash the Sun into the Earth and then to feast upon our brains...

- Uh, yeah, we're killing a whole buncha less people now, particularly relative to how many people there are now.

I beg to differ. Remind me how many fairly large wars there have been in the last ten years? Is it three or four?

Fair enough on the crusades, but I understand that much of the kingdom-to-kingdom fighting was done using conscripted serfs led by a small core of knights and professional warriors.

Yeah, but we're looking at numbers in the thousands for a *big* army...

As for wars taking longer then, let's not forget the advances in mobility we've made. You could blow Bonaparte's mind if you told him he could have thousands of well-trained soldiers deployed anywhere on Earth within 48 hours...
True, but would you want Bonaparte able to deploy anywhere in 48hrs?

- I admit it's some speculation, but I'm hardly alone in that. The plans taking this into account were derived from experience in fighting the Japanese on other Pacific islands, and assuming that they'd be much more defensive still about their home islands. With estimates at about 12 million people dead for a conventional assault, I think you can make a very favorable analysis of the decision to use nuclear weapons. Of course, we can argue about how they were used...I'm just saying that I think a conventional invasion would have been much worse, based on our best knowledge of Japanese tactics and mindset at the time.
There were other options, and it wasn't just an attempt to make the Japanese shut up and surrender - it was a challenge to the rest of the world, too.

- No argument here. I'm interested in your opinion, though.
I'm of the opinion that this is a suck-it-and-see situation...If push comes to shove, though, I'm of the opinion that its economically a bad thing, opens a moral/ethical can of worms, could be hell to deal with and that there's a small chance that we'd all be murdered at our cerebral interface ports.

- Hubris? What hubris? Science is infallible! It is perfect! MWUAHAHAHAHA! *thunder and lightning*

...seriously, though. I understand, but we didn't get all the way up here by sitting in our caves and hoping for sunshine. We went out, we took risks, we won some and we lost some. There are no safe bets, and I think one of our strengths as a species is our dedication to ideas and taking risks to make them real. (Then again, we may just be boneheaded.)

Gatac
True, but it still doesn't mean that science is necessarily better than other belief systems, as it is more and more frequently put forward...

[Gatac]

- Okay, no more metaphysics. I don't think we'll agree with each other there, anyway. Still, it's been an interesting discussion so far.

- The way I understand it, the council's chief bone of contention was the issue of the Holy Trinity versus the one God above all. As I recall, the Holy Trinity won out, but this was by no means uncontroversial at the time.

What about all the splinter groups of Christianity?

- Fortunately, I can swim.

- What's the relevance of the various biblical stories of people's exploits, especially when there's no clear moral? What's the relevance of Revelations when you're not in altered states of consciousness? I think the modern bible contains plenty of passages that border on being almost impenetrable; a warning against a sort of witchcraft seems almost like an oasis of straightforwardness.

I'm not saying the bible is unreadable, far from it, but I do think passages that don't make any immedeate sense to the reader have been retained for a long time. I can't discount that something might have been dropped, of course. But if I approached the bible as "Let's cut this down to the basics", there's other stuff I'd kick out first. My subjective view, of course.

- Yes, let's not get into the take life / give life thing.

- A zombie butterfly?

- The conflicts we have now are terrible, but I think it can be argued with some success that they a) do not approach the level of total warfare we saw in, say, the Thirty Years war and such, b) are fought by less developed nations we have, in a way, uplifted to our tech level without giving them the time to adjust their culture. (I know, big big BIG minefield...)

- Given the area and population density of the small kingdoms involved, that would still be a very sizeable percentage of the serfs.

- I'm saying he would've gotten a few good ideas on using that as a force multiplier, but I have a firm policy on not exporting tech to the past, so we'll never find out.

- What other options? Cut off shipping and starve out the civilians? Surrender to Japan, maybe? Like I said, it was a shopping mall of suck and they went with the lesser evil.

- Fair enough, though I think the economic potential is mostly positive.

- I beg to differ, but I'd rather not have a "Science is not Religion" debate here.

Gatac

[Nate the Great]

I wish I could respond with a valid addition to this discussion, but I can't. I guess I got Captain Style's faulty transwarp engine and can't keep up.