I hadn’t considered the possibility that chimps could/would be uplifted in the near future (50 years or mean chimp lifetime is a good rule of thumb); I think it’s entirely possible that the technology would be there, but I don’t understand the motivation for wanting to uplift chimps. I guess the reasoning is that more sapient beings == more interesting conversations, more math proofs, more works of art, so more Fun, but I’m not sure that we would want to uplift chimps if we had the technology to do so.
If we had the technology to uplift a species, I think it would be likely that we had the technology to have FAI or uploaded human brains, which would be a more efficient way to have more sapient beings with which to talk. Is it immoral to leave other species the way they are if transhumanism or FAI take off?
If we had the technology to uplift a species, I think it would be likely that we had the technology to have FAI or uploaded human brains, which would be a more efficient way to have more sapient beings with which to talk.
This seems strange to me. Can you expand on your reasoning? Uplifting seems to me to be potentially a lot simpler. The take level to identify the genes that are most responsible for human intelligence is not that much beyond our current one. And the example species you’ve used, chimps, are close enough to humans that it is likely that for at least some of those genes, simply inserting them into the chimp genome would likely substantially increase their intelligence.
Uplifting seems orders of magnitude easier than uploading at least.
I’ll concede that you are probably right about uplifting being easier.
This was my reasoning:
Properly identifying which gene encodes for what and usefully altering genes to express a particular phenotype as complex as human-level intelligence would require (in any reasonable amount of time) at the least a narrow AI to process and refine the huge amount of data in the half-chromosome or so that separates us from chimps. Chimps are close to humans, yes, but altering their DNA to uplift them seems to me to be the type of problem that would either take years of Manhattan-Project level dedication with the technology we have right now, or some sort of AI to do the heavy lifting for us.
I think I’m way out of my depth here, though, as I don’t know enough about genetic engineering or AI research to know with confidence which would be easier.
I hadn’t considered the possibility that chimps could/would be uplifted in the near future (50 years or mean chimp lifetime is a good rule of thumb); I think it’s entirely possible that the technology would be there, but I don’t understand the motivation for wanting to uplift chimps. I guess the reasoning is that more sapient beings == more interesting conversations, more math proofs, more works of art, so more Fun, but I’m not sure that we would want to uplift chimps if we had the technology to do so.
If we had the technology to uplift a species, I think it would be likely that we had the technology to have FAI or uploaded human brains, which would be a more efficient way to have more sapient beings with which to talk. Is it immoral to leave other species the way they are if transhumanism or FAI take off?
This seems strange to me. Can you expand on your reasoning? Uplifting seems to me to be potentially a lot simpler. The take level to identify the genes that are most responsible for human intelligence is not that much beyond our current one. And the example species you’ve used, chimps, are close enough to humans that it is likely that for at least some of those genes, simply inserting them into the chimp genome would likely substantially increase their intelligence.
Uplifting seems orders of magnitude easier than uploading at least.
I’ll concede that you are probably right about uplifting being easier.
This was my reasoning: Properly identifying which gene encodes for what and usefully altering genes to express a particular phenotype as complex as human-level intelligence would require (in any reasonable amount of time) at the least a narrow AI to process and refine the huge amount of data in the half-chromosome or so that separates us from chimps. Chimps are close to humans, yes, but altering their DNA to uplift them seems to me to be the type of problem that would either take years of Manhattan-Project level dedication with the technology we have right now, or some sort of AI to do the heavy lifting for us.
I think I’m way out of my depth here, though, as I don’t know enough about genetic engineering or AI research to know with confidence which would be easier.
[Edited for typos.]