From a multiverse perspective, it might be alright even if you resurrect a version significantly different from the original, see the essay by avturchin. Yudkowsky also discussed it somewhere on Facebook, but I don’t know how to find it.
The useful question is about value of the data that can be collected about people, not so much its usefulness for achieving a particular task, because it may no longer make sense to perform that task once it becomes possible to do so (as in giant cheesecake fallacy). A system that can reconstruct people from data can do many other things that may be more valuable than reconstruction of people even from the point of view of these people that could’ve been reconstructed. It’s a question of what should be done with the resources and capabilities of that system.
The value of the data is in its contribution to the value of the best things that can be made, and these best things don’t necessarily improve through availability of that data, because they are not necessarily reconstructed people. I’m not sure there is any knowable-on-human-level difference in value between what can be done with the world given the knowledge about particular people who used to live in the past (either through indirect data or cryopreserved brains), compared to the value of what can be done without that knowledge. I guess it can’t hurt if it doesn’t consume resources that could otherwise find a meaningful purpose.
From a multiverse perspective, it might be alright even if you resurrect a version significantly different from the original, see the essay by avturchin. Yudkowsky also discussed it somewhere on Facebook, but I don’t know how to find it.
The useful question is about value of the data that can be collected about people, not so much its usefulness for achieving a particular task, because it may no longer make sense to perform that task once it becomes possible to do so (as in giant cheesecake fallacy). A system that can reconstruct people from data can do many other things that may be more valuable than reconstruction of people even from the point of view of these people that could’ve been reconstructed. It’s a question of what should be done with the resources and capabilities of that system.
The value of the data is in its contribution to the value of the best things that can be made, and these best things don’t necessarily improve through availability of that data, because they are not necessarily reconstructed people. I’m not sure there is any knowable-on-human-level difference in value between what can be done with the world given the knowledge about particular people who used to live in the past (either through indirect data or cryopreserved brains), compared to the value of what can be done without that knowledge. I guess it can’t hurt if it doesn’t consume resources that could otherwise find a meaningful purpose.