If it provides bayesian evidence, shouldn’t there be something that would in principle provide counterevidence? I can’t figure out what that kind of counterevidence would be. Can you imagine an em population explosion where at some point no ems would want to make copies of themselves? I’ve got the impression that once an em population explosion gets started you can’t really stop that because those ems that want copies get selected no matter how miserable the situation.
Ems should have some ability to alter themselves to enjoy life more. Wouldn’t they use that?
Since in this scenario almost all ems work on a subsistence level and there’s a huge number of ems, if enjoying life makes them even slightly less productive I don’t think that kind of alteration would become very common due to selection effects.
As I understand it, the premise behind ems is that it’s possible to copy human minds into computers, but not to understand the spaghetti code. There won’t be an obvious way to just make workers happier.
If it provides bayesian evidence, shouldn’t there be something that would in principle provide counterevidence? I can’t figure out what that kind of counterevidence would be. Can you imagine an em population explosion where at some point no ems would want to make copies of themselves? I’ve got the impression that once an em population explosion gets started you can’t really stop that because those ems that want copies get selected no matter how miserable the situation.
Since in this scenario almost all ems work on a subsistence level and there’s a huge number of ems, if enjoying life makes them even slightly less productive I don’t think that kind of alteration would become very common due to selection effects.
Evidence that most ems are slaves whose copies are made at the choice of owners would seem relevant.
Making miserable workers a bit happier doesn’t seem to make them less productive today. Why should there be no similar options in an em world?
As I understand it, the premise behind ems is that it’s possible to copy human minds into computers, but not to understand the spaghetti code. There won’t be an obvious way to just make workers happier.
I expect faster and more reliable evaluations of Prozac-like interventions.
I also expect that emotions associated with having few cpu cycles are less strongly ingrained than those caused by lack of food.