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Surely you recognize the plethora of ethical concerns behind this? Certainly there is much to be learned in terms of energy efficiency of computation but I'm un

Surely you recognize the plethora of ethical concerns behind this? Certainly there is much to be learned in terms of energy efficiency of computation but I'm undecided as to whether we should go down this path. If we do, I believe it should be regulated from the get-go or else it will be too late by the time the biological substrates reach animal-analogous intelligence. Perhaps if done for classical computing research without trialing machine learning we can avoid asking ourselves at what point the biological machine has sentience and deserves agency?

netizen-936824 5y ago
I'm sorry, but I fail to see the ethical dilemma of creating an artificial biological computer.
sgillen 5y ago
Do you believe that using a biological computer for research is ethically any different than an animal analogous intelligence in silicon?
- datameta 5y ago
  I think we will have to navigate similar ethical straits in the development of both organic and inorganic sentience.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bckr 5y ago
I think it's more likely that it would be ethical than unethical. Sentience is "about" the functions necessary for animal life. These functions are a huge waste from a computational perspective. A good bio-computer would be comparable to a fungus, or head cheese[]. [] http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=687 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=687
- datameta 5y ago
  I see your point and agree that it would be extraneous to model awareness for a biomachine whose purpose is efficiency. But what of the inevitable research that will expressly attempt to create AGI using said unaware computation paste?
  - bckr 5y ago
    Yeah, that's a concern to a degree. But I'll justify why I'm not really worried about it in two ways. 1) The computations we want to do may still be expressed better without consciousness. Think Chinese Room thought experiment, or philosophical zombies. In other words, we may be able to make something that can understand and execute complex commands, perceive and react to its environment, and communicate information — without having feelings, desires, or consciousness per se. 2) I'm less worried about creating new things to be unethical to than I am about the dis-ethical treatment of currently sentient beings.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Perhaps this sort of research would further our understanding of what sentience really is
    - ben_w 5y ago
      > In other words, we may be able to make something that can understand and execute complex commands, perceive and react to its environment, and communicate information — without having feelings, desires, or consciousness per se. > 2) I'm less worried about creating new things to be unethical to than I am about the dis-ethical treatment of currently sentient beings. Both of these relate to one of my major concerns: We don’t yet have a testable definition of “feelings, desires, or consciousness” [0] such that we could even tell if an AI did or did not have this characteristic. [0] and any of the other various words frequently thrown around as attempts to create such a definition. Every time I make this claim I get responses along the lines of “yes we do: $foo!”, but in my experience so far, all of these turn out to be one of (1) circular definitions, or (2) things humans don’t have, or (3) things which plants and the enemy characters in Wolfenstein 3D do have.
silicon2401 5y ago
> I believe it should be regulated from the get-go or else it will be too late by the time the biological substrates reach animal-analogous intelligence. I assume you are also a vegan? I would put my energy into fighting animal meat and animal husbandry today than worrying about a level of technology we probably won't reach for at least a few decades if not a few centuries.
- datameta 5y ago
  My words here are not exclusively stemming from my thoughts on animal suffering, but also from wishing we could have preempted the current wave of ML-powered surveillance had we known where it would now be two decades ago and enacted sufficient regulations.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    So perhaps we should regulate, rather than hope we never do something that could progress our understanding
    - datameta 5y ago
      My reticence comes from not being fully confident in our ability to regulate technologies with an essentially luddite governmental body when it comes to tech they do not wish to fully understand. Perhaps if we change how they learn about new developments we can expect them to make informed decisions regarding something like organic AI.
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        Perhaps we should have better educated regulators then.
shadofx 5y ago
Perhaps with the proper source code, sentience can already be created with existing hardware? I don't think regulation of hardware is a solution to what is fundamentally a software problem.
amanaplanacanal 5y ago
We already have ethical models for how we treat animals. It seems logical to apply the same models to artificial intelligences if they are able to suffer the same way animals are.

netizen-936824 5y ago

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the ethical dilemma of creating an artificial biological computer.

sgillen 5y ago

Do you believe that using a biological computer for research is ethically any different than an animal analogous intelligence in silicon?

datameta 5y ago
I think we will have to navigate similar ethical straits in the development of both organic and inorganic sentience.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bckr 5y ago

I think it's more likely that it would be ethical than unethical. Sentience is "about" the functions necessary for animal life. These functions are a huge waste from a computational perspective. A good bio-computer would be comparable to a fungus, or head cheese[]. [] http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=687 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=687

datameta 5y ago
I see your point and agree that it would be extraneous to model awareness for a biomachine whose purpose is efficiency. But what of the inevitable research that will expressly attempt to create AGI using said unaware computation paste?
- bckr 5y ago
  Yeah, that's a concern to a degree. But I'll justify why I'm not really worried about it in two ways. 1) The computations we want to do may still be expressed better without consciousness. Think Chinese Room thought experiment, or philosophical zombies. In other words, we may be able to make something that can understand and execute complex commands, perceive and react to its environment, and communicate information — without having feelings, desires, or consciousness per se. 2) I'm less worried about creating new things to be unethical to than I am about the dis-ethical treatment of currently sentient beings.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Perhaps this sort of research would further our understanding of what sentience really is
  - ben_w 5y ago
    > In other words, we may be able to make something that can understand and execute complex commands, perceive and react to its environment, and communicate information — without having feelings, desires, or consciousness per se. > 2) I'm less worried about creating new things to be unethical to than I am about the dis-ethical treatment of currently sentient beings. Both of these relate to one of my major concerns: We don’t yet have a testable definition of “feelings, desires, or consciousness” [0] such that we could even tell if an AI did or did not have this characteristic. [0] and any of the other various words frequently thrown around as attempts to create such a definition. Every time I make this claim I get responses along the lines of “yes we do: $foo!”, but in my experience so far, all of these turn out to be one of (1) circular definitions, or (2) things humans don’t have, or (3) things which plants and the enemy characters in Wolfenstein 3D do have.

silicon2401 5y ago

> I believe it should be regulated from the get-go or else it will be too late by the time the biological substrates reach animal-analogous intelligence. I assume you are also a vegan? I would put my energy into fighting animal meat and animal husbandry today than worrying about a level of technology we probably won't reach for at least a few decades if not a few centuries.

datameta 5y ago
My words here are not exclusively stemming from my thoughts on animal suffering, but also from wishing we could have preempted the current wave of ML-powered surveillance had we known where it would now be two decades ago and enacted sufficient regulations.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  So perhaps we should regulate, rather than hope we never do something that could progress our understanding
  - datameta 5y ago
    My reticence comes from not being fully confident in our ability to regulate technologies with an essentially luddite governmental body when it comes to tech they do not wish to fully understand. Perhaps if we change how they learn about new developments we can expect them to make informed decisions regarding something like organic AI.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Perhaps we should have better educated regulators then.

shadofx 5y ago

Perhaps with the proper source code, sentience can already be created with existing hardware? I don't think regulation of hardware is a solution to what is fundamentally a software problem.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

We already have ethical models for how we treat animals. It seems logical to apply the same models to artificial intelligences if they are able to suffer the same way animals are.