Also, your concern about some kind of disaster caused by wireheading addiction and resulting deaths and damage is pretty absurd.
Yes, people are more likely to do drugs when they are more available but even if the government can’t limit the devices that enable wireheading from legal purchase it will still require a greater effort to put together your wireheading setup than it currently does to drive to the right part of the nearest city (discoverable via google) and purchasing some heroin. Even if it did become very easy to access it’s still not true that most people who have been given the option to shoot up heroin do so and the biggest factor which deters them is the perceived danger or harm. If wireheading is more addictive/harmful it will discourage use.
Moreover, for wireheading to pose a greater danger than just going to buy heroin it would have to give greater control over brain stimulation (i.e. create more pleasure etc..) and the greater our control over the brain stimulation the greater the chance we can do so in a way that doesn’t create damage.
Indeed, any non-chemical means of brain stimulation is almost certain to be crazily safe because once monitoring equipment detects a problem you can simply shut off the intervention without the concern of long-halflife drugs remaining in the system continuing the effect.
Probably the difference is in the angle of slope of the availability of the drug. For a person who never injected anything in his system (like me), going to the “right part of the city” is frightful experience which I would hopely never do. It is very hard step. But not the same with overeating or internet-addiction, where entrance is very easy.
“once monitoring equipment detects a problem you can simply shut off the intervention”
Look on the Facebook addiction—did the Facebook ever shutdown anyone because he spent too long on their site and was procrastinated at work? Some people block FB on their computers voluntary, but they still lurk through proxies—it is not easy to block something harmful but addictive.
Anyway, I understand your desire to “good wireheading” which will end sufferings and will not hinder productivity, and some AI controlled brain stimulation may be such a system. But if it is not controlled by advanced AI, but by just a few parameters regulation, a person could easily unwillingly touch a region of the brain (and utility function) from which he will become instantly severely addicted.
Also, your concern about some kind of disaster caused by wireheading addiction and resulting deaths and damage is pretty absurd.
Yes, people are more likely to do drugs when they are more available but even if the government can’t limit the devices that enable wireheading from legal purchase it will still require a greater effort to put together your wireheading setup than it currently does to drive to the right part of the nearest city (discoverable via google) and purchasing some heroin. Even if it did become very easy to access it’s still not true that most people who have been given the option to shoot up heroin do so and the biggest factor which deters them is the perceived danger or harm. If wireheading is more addictive/harmful it will discourage use.
Moreover, for wireheading to pose a greater danger than just going to buy heroin it would have to give greater control over brain stimulation (i.e. create more pleasure etc..) and the greater our control over the brain stimulation the greater the chance we can do so in a way that doesn’t create damage.
Indeed, any non-chemical means of brain stimulation is almost certain to be crazily safe because once monitoring equipment detects a problem you can simply shut off the intervention without the concern of long-halflife drugs remaining in the system continuing the effect.
Probably the difference is in the angle of slope of the availability of the drug. For a person who never injected anything in his system (like me), going to the “right part of the city” is frightful experience which I would hopely never do. It is very hard step. But not the same with overeating or internet-addiction, where entrance is very easy.
“once monitoring equipment detects a problem you can simply shut off the intervention”
Look on the Facebook addiction—did the Facebook ever shutdown anyone because he spent too long on their site and was procrastinated at work? Some people block FB on their computers voluntary, but they still lurk through proxies—it is not easy to block something harmful but addictive.
Anyway, I understand your desire to “good wireheading” which will end sufferings and will not hinder productivity, and some AI controlled brain stimulation may be such a system. But if it is not controlled by advanced AI, but by just a few parameters regulation, a person could easily unwillingly touch a region of the brain (and utility function) from which he will become instantly severely addicted.