That it will achieve physical security implies that the physical originals of those people would not exist after the process
Yes, that’s what I was thinking when I wrote that, but if the FAI concludes that replacing a physical person with a software copy isn’t a harmless operation, it could instead keep physical humans around and place them into virtual environments Matrix-style.
Um. Shouldn’t we be thinking “how will we get the FAI to conclude that replacing people with software is not harmless” not “If the FAI concludes that this is harmless...”
After all, if it’s doing something that kills people, it isn’t friendly.
To place people into a virtual environment would be to take away their independence. Humans have a need for dignity, and I think that would be bad for them. I think FAI should know better than to do that, too.
Um. Shouldn’t we be thinking “how will we get the FAI to conclude that replacing people with software is not harmless” not “If the FAI concludes that this is harmless...”
If it’s actually a FAI, you should approve of what it decides, not of what people (including yourself) currently believe. If it can’t be relied upon in this manner, it’s not (known to be) a FAI. You know whether it’s a FAI based on its design, not based on its behavior, which it won’t generally be possible to analyze (or do something about).
You shouldn’t be sure about correct answers to object level (very vaguely specified) questions like “Is replacing people with software harmless?”. A FAI should use a procedure that’s more reliable in answering such questions than you or any other human is. If it’s using such a procedure, then what it decides is a more reliable indicator of what the correct decision is than what you (or I) believe. It’s currently unclear how to produce such a procedure.
Demanding that FAI conforms to moral beliefs currently held by people is also somewhat pointless in the sense that FAI has to be able to make decisions about much more precisely specified decision problems, such that humans won’t be able to analyze those decision problems in any useful way, so there are decisions where moral beliefs currently or potentially held by humans don’t apply. If it’s built so as to be able to make such decisions, it will also be able to answer the questions about which there are currently held beliefs, as a special case. If the procedure for answering moral questions is more reliable in general, it’ll also be more reliable for such questions.
Um. Shouldn’t we be thinking “how will we get the FAI to conclude that replacing people with software is not harmless” not “If the FAI concludes that this is harmless...”
A lot of people here think that the quick assumption that unusual substrate changes necessarily imply death isn’t well-founded. Arguing with the assumption that it is obviously true will not be helpful.
There should be a good single post or wiki page to like to about this debate (it also comes up constantly in cryonics discussions), but I don’t think there is one.
Yes, that’s what I was thinking when I wrote that, but if the FAI concludes that replacing a physical person with a software copy isn’t a harmless operation, it could instead keep physical humans around and place them into virtual environments Matrix-style.
Um. Shouldn’t we be thinking “how will we get the FAI to conclude that replacing people with software is not harmless” not “If the FAI concludes that this is harmless...”
After all, if it’s doing something that kills people, it isn’t friendly.
To place people into a virtual environment would be to take away their independence. Humans have a need for dignity, and I think that would be bad for them. I think FAI should know better than to do that, too.
If it’s actually a FAI, you should approve of what it decides, not of what people (including yourself) currently believe. If it can’t be relied upon in this manner, it’s not (known to be) a FAI. You know whether it’s a FAI based on its design, not based on its behavior, which it won’t generally be possible to analyze (or do something about).
You shouldn’t be sure about correct answers to object level (very vaguely specified) questions like “Is replacing people with software harmless?”. A FAI should use a procedure that’s more reliable in answering such questions than you or any other human is. If it’s using such a procedure, then what it decides is a more reliable indicator of what the correct decision is than what you (or I) believe. It’s currently unclear how to produce such a procedure.
Demanding that FAI conforms to moral beliefs currently held by people is also somewhat pointless in the sense that FAI has to be able to make decisions about much more precisely specified decision problems, such that humans won’t be able to analyze those decision problems in any useful way, so there are decisions where moral beliefs currently or potentially held by humans don’t apply. If it’s built so as to be able to make such decisions, it will also be able to answer the questions about which there are currently held beliefs, as a special case. If the procedure for answering moral questions is more reliable in general, it’ll also be more reliable for such questions.
See Complex Value Systems are Required to Realize Valuable Futures for some relevant arguments.
A lot of people here think that the quick assumption that unusual substrate changes necessarily imply death isn’t well-founded. Arguing with the assumption that it is obviously true will not be helpful.
There should be a good single post or wiki page to like to about this debate (it also comes up constantly in cryonics discussions), but I don’t think there is one.