3 ms·

>entertain themselves into extinction Do you think this is an actual possibility? For ours or any other sort of civilization?

brianpgordon 9y ago
Imagine a world where everyone's consciousness has been uploaded to computers. People play sports, knit sweaters, whatever- all in virtual reality. It's much safer and cheaper than maintaining a physical body, after all. Now each person might have some real human friends, but they're more likely to have AI friends who are smarter, more charming, more interesting. Or maybe there's just a lot more of them. You may not even know which of your friends are "real." It might be considered insulting to ask. You spend more and more time playing alone or tittering with a circle of sycophantic AIs. Over time people decide to pass on by ritualistically committing data-suicide, or overdose on data-drugs, or get squeezed out by increasing scarcity of computing resources, or whatever. And so the species gradually dies out until you just have some AI routines running in a hot server room on a dead planet. The last human might not even realize that she's the last. The same situation could occur without mind uploads if you could build very realistic androids, but I like the mind upload scenario. And of course this is all very chauvinistically assuming that those AI routines slash robots don't qualify as human even though they're indistinguishable. The AIs could be conscious, or not, I suppose, depending on how they're implemented.
- JBlue42 9y ago
  Damn, that's well thought out. Are you working on a near-future sf book? ;-)
  - brianpgordon 9y ago
    No, I just cobbled that together from other SF I've read. If you want more of that, try: - Permutation City by Greg Egan (Imagine a world where everyone's consciousness has been uploaded to computers.) - Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (People play sports, knit sweaters, whatever- all in virtual reality.) Note: this book is corny as hell and borderline YA but still fun - Blindsight by Peter Watts (You spend more and more time playing alone or tittering with a circle of sycophantic AIs. ... squeezed out by increasing scarcity of computing resources) - https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football (Over time people decide to pass on by ritualistically committing data-suicide) Just for the impact of functional immortality on common people
    - JBlue42 9y ago
      Thanks for the recs! Will check them out.

brianpgordon 9y ago

Imagine a world where everyone's consciousness has been uploaded to computers. People play sports, knit sweaters, whatever- all in virtual reality. It's much safer and cheaper than maintaining a physical body, after all. Now each person might have some real human friends, but they're more likely to have AI friends who are smarter, more charming, more interesting. Or maybe there's just a lot more of them. You may not even know which of your friends are "real." It might be considered insulting to ask. You spend more and more time playing alone or tittering with a circle of sycophantic AIs. Over time people decide to pass on by ritualistically committing data-suicide, or overdose on data-drugs, or get squeezed out by increasing scarcity of computing resources, or whatever. And so the species gradually dies out until you just have some AI routines running in a hot server room on a dead planet. The last human might not even realize that she's the last. The same situation could occur without mind uploads if you could build very realistic androids, but I like the mind upload scenario. And of course this is all very chauvinistically assuming that those AI routines slash robots don't qualify as human even though they're indistinguishable. The AIs could be conscious, or not, I suppose, depending on how they're implemented.

JBlue42 9y ago
Damn, that's well thought out. Are you working on a near-future sf book? ;-)
- brianpgordon 9y ago
  No, I just cobbled that together from other SF I've read. If you want more of that, try: - Permutation City by Greg Egan (Imagine a world where everyone's consciousness has been uploaded to computers.) - Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (People play sports, knit sweaters, whatever- all in virtual reality.) Note: this book is corny as hell and borderline YA but still fun - Blindsight by Peter Watts (You spend more and more time playing alone or tittering with a circle of sycophantic AIs. ... squeezed out by increasing scarcity of computing resources) - https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football (Over time people decide to pass on by ritualistically committing data-suicide) Just for the impact of functional immortality on common people
  - JBlue42 9y ago
    Thanks for the recs! Will check them out.