Where are you right, while most others are wrong? Including people on LW!
A friend I was chatting to dropped a potential example in my lap yesterday. Intuitively, they don’t find the idea of humanity being eliminated and replaced by AI necessarily horrifying or even bad. As far as they’re concerned, it’d be good for intelligent life to persist in the universe, but why ought it be human, or even human-emulating?
(I don’t agree with that position normatively but it seems impregnable intellectually.)
it’d be good for intelligent life to persist in the universe, but why ought it be human, or even human-emulating
Just to make sure, could this be because you assume that “intelligent life” will automatically be similar to humans in some other aspects?
Imagine a galaxy full of intelligent spiders, who only use their intelligence for travelling the space and destroying potentially competing species, but nothing else. A galaxy full of smart torturers who mostly spend their days keeping their prey alive while the acid dissolves the prey’s body, so they can enjoy the delicious juice. Only some specialists among them also spend some time doing science and building space rockets. Only this, multiplied by infinity, forever (or as long as the laws of physics permit).
Just to make sure, could this be because you [sic] assume that “intelligent life” will automatically be similar to humans in some other aspects?
It could be because they assume that. More likely, I’d guess, they think that some forms of human-displacing intelligence (like your spacefaring smart torturers) would indeed be ghastly and/or utterly unrecognizable to humans — but others need not be.
A friend I was chatting to dropped a potential example in my lap yesterday. Intuitively, they don’t find the idea of humanity being eliminated and replaced by AI necessarily horrifying or even bad. As far as they’re concerned, it’d be good for intelligent life to persist in the universe, but why ought it be human, or even human-emulating?
(I don’t agree with that position normatively but it seems impregnable intellectually.)
Just to make sure, could this be because you assume that “intelligent life” will automatically be similar to humans in some other aspects?
Imagine a galaxy full of intelligent spiders, who only use their intelligence for travelling the space and destroying potentially competing species, but nothing else. A galaxy full of smart torturers who mostly spend their days keeping their prey alive while the acid dissolves the prey’s body, so they can enjoy the delicious juice. Only some specialists among them also spend some time doing science and building space rockets. Only this, multiplied by infinity, forever (or as long as the laws of physics permit).
It could be because they assume that. More likely, I’d guess, they think that some forms of human-displacing intelligence (like your spacefaring smart torturers) would indeed be ghastly and/or utterly unrecognizable to humans — but others need not be.