[link] The Philosophy of Intelligence Explosions and Advanced Robotics

[Kaj_Sotala]

The philosopher John Danaher has posted a list of all the posts that he’s written on the topic of robotics and AI. Below is the current version of the list: he says that he will keep updating the page as he writes more.

• The Singularity: Overview and Framework: This was my first attempt to provide a general overview and framework for understanding the debate about the technological singularity. I suggested that the debate could be organised around three main theses: (i) the explosion thesis—which claims that there will be an intelligence explosion; (ii) the unfriendliness thesis—which claims that an advanced artificial intelligence is likely to be “unfriendly”; and (iii) the inevitability thesis—which claims that the creation of an unfriendly AI will be difficult to avoid, if not inevitable.

• The Singularity: Overview and Framework Redux: This was my second attempt to provide a general overview and framework for understanding the debate about the technological singularity. I tried to reduce the framework down to two main theses: (i) the explosion thesis and (ii) the unfriendliness thesis.

• The Golem Genie and Unfriendly AI (Part One, Part Two): This two-parter summarises what I think is the best argument for the unfriendliness thesis. The argument was originally presented by Muehlhauser and Helm, but I try to simplify its main components.

• AIs and the Decisive Advantage Thesis: Many people claim that an advanced artificial intelligence would have decisive advantages over human intelligences. Is this right? In this post, I look at Kaj Sotala’s argument to that effect.

• Is there a case for robot slaves? - If robots can be persons—in the morally thick sense of “person”—then surely it would be wrong to make them cater to our every whim? Or would it? Steve Petersen argues that the creation of robot slaves might be morally permissible. In this post, I look at what he has to say.

• The Ethics of Robot Sex: A reasonably self-explanatory title. This post looks at the ethical issues that might arise from the creation of sex robots.

• Will sex workers be replaced by robots? A Precis: A short summary of a longer article examining the possibility of sex workers being replaced by robots. Contrary to the work of others, I suggest that sex work might be resilient to the phenomenon of technological unemployment.

• Bostrom on Superintelligence (1) The Orthogonality Thesis: The first part in my series on Nick Bostrom’s book Superintelligence. This one covers Bostrom’s orthogonality thesis, according to which there is no necessary relationship between intelligence and benevolence.

• Bostrom on Superintelligence (2) The Instrumental Convergence Thesis: The second part in my series on Bostrom’s book. This one examines the instrumental convergence thesis, according to which an intelligent agent, no matter what its final goals may be, is likely to converge upon certain instrumental goals that are unfriendly to human beings.

• Bostrom on Superintelligence (3) Doom and the Treacherous Turn: The third part in my series on Bostrom’s book. This time I finally get to look at Bostrom’s argument for the AI doomsday scenario, and for why it may be difficult to avoid.

• Bostrom on Superintelligence (4) Malignant Failure Modes: The fourth part in my series on Bostrom’s book. This one explains why Bostrom thinks it would be difficult to simply program the AI with the right set of values.

• Bostrom on Superintelligence (5) Limiting an AIs Capabilities: The fifth part in my series on Bostrom’s book. This one looks at the possibility of hampering or restricting an AI’s capabilities, and whether that could help to avoid the doomsday scenario.

• Bostrom on Superintelligence (6) Motivation Selection Methods: The sixth (and for now final) part in my series on Bostrom’s book. This one considers the advantages and disadvantages of different methods for selecting the motivations of an advanced AI.

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Will sex workers be replaced by robots? A Precis: A short summary of a longer article examining the possibility of sex workers being replaced by robots. Contrary to the work of others, I suggest that sex work might be resilient to the phenomenon of technological unemployment.

Agreed, I think it will have to do with relational aggression and ‘john’s’ drives for dominance, than arousal. For the same reason, I suspect rapes will still happen, and that without neural engineering, people will make post-scarcity difficult for one another even when their subsistence needs are met.

Men seeking the services of TG prostitutes are sometimes very scary. Many of them have issues about their own sexuality which can make some men seek transsexuals to use and then violently punish. It’s their way of dealing with their own self-hatred for their sexual feelings. These men can be extremely dangerous. -TS roadmap

Though, I can also forsee a post-scarcity market place evolving. There may be externalising deviants in a post-scarcity world, but also internalising deviants:

One of the motivations for a couple of young women I know is a twisted form of validation and acceptance. They find the attention of clients validates their sense of themselves as women. They confuse a business transaction for an emotional relationship. Being an object of desire makes them feel wanted or makes them feel female, even if just for a little while.

I could have cherrypicked evidence from a females perspective but I don’t think that’s as legitimate a mentalisation as for MTF transexuals, since I’m biologically male.