5 ms·
It's not that freaky for me. I think it's awesome!
by scollet 5y ago
It's not that freaky for me. I think it's awesome!
- sho_hn 5y agoReminds me of this short fiction: https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y agoOooh, that was awesome.
- mshroyer 5y agoI hadn't run across that story before, so thanks for sharing it.
- _Microft 5y agoIf you liked that, you might enjoy the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor. http://dennisetaylor.org/ http://dennisetaylor.org/ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32109569-we-are-legion-we-are-bob https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32109569-we-are-legion-w...
- mshroyer 5y agoOh I think it's an awesome project, too. It's just that it sort of makes concrete what were previously hypothetical arguments about simulating living beings. I can't bring myself to care much about a C. elegans, but let's say we scale this up enough to simulate something the size of a dog plus its environment. Presumably it has subjective experience, like a real dog? What are the ethics of writing code that would result in its "suffering"?
- userbinator 5y agoWhat are the ethics of writing code that would result in its "suffering"? Do you have the same concerns about other, perhaps much simpler but also virtual and pseudointelligent entities, such as computer-controlled players in games? It does raise some deeply philosophical questions about life and what it means in general.
- mshroyer 5y ago> computer-controlled players in games? Nah, I'm not particularly worried about that. Because those are all currently based on models too simple to conceivably have anything like consciousness. On the other hand, once we can simulate a human and its environment at OpenWorm's targeted level of abstraction, presumably we would have a conscious being there?
- reuben364 5y agoThe only consciousness we experience is our own. In the extreme, we can no more say a chair suffers than a human being other than ourselves. Of course we take the pragmatic approach of deciding things that look like suffering to us is suffering.
- mshroyer 5y agoI strongly disagree. The human brain, in its connectome, encompasses enough computational complexity to contain consciousness and suffering. A chair does not, at least not based on any model I've yet seen proposed.
- reuben364 5y agoAnd on what basis do you claim that computational complexity is a necessary condition for consciousness and suffering? There is only one datum you have for consciousness. Other people can tell you that they experience consciousness, but so can a Text-to-Speech program