5 ms·

Don't knock it til you try it? I mean, already in recent years people have made some very low fidelity 'resurrections' and gotten some measure of comfort from

by Jach 5y ago

Don't knock it til you try it? I mean, already in recent years people have made some very low fidelity 'resurrections' and gotten some measure of comfort from it, never mind the many years of history of people who visit gravestones to 'chat' (some even believing they get replies to some extent or another). When markov chains were hip, "talk with Charles Dickens!" (play with a markov model trained on his works) was at least interesting to some, GPT of course can do a lot better. Imagine we had actual superintelligent AI working on this, which actually tried to recreate brain models, or even restore a sense of existence to the resurrection that can continue independently and to their own delight rather than just being some static VR experience turned on and off whenever. (I jotted some thoughts a few years ago... https://www.thejach.com/view/2017/6/how_you_might_see_some_of_the_dead_again https://www.thejach.com/view/2017/6/how_you_might_see_some_o...) I'm in agreement though at least for now that even if you dialed up the fidelity to the point I can't point to anything objectively "off", let alone went with a low fidelity VR thing or just a chat bot, I'd still always think in the back of my mind that this isn't really the same person. Nevertheless, it could still be comforting to some, and interesting to others, and so if it's at all possible for potential future humans/ems/aligned AIs to work at it, they will. Curiously I don't have the same back of the mind feeling at all when considering the idea of someone preserved with cryonics and then brought back as an em, the person would be the same to me, even if there was a bit of damage from the vitrification process that was error-corrected. I have a disagreement with a friend on that point, who thinks it would be something similar but not the same. Anyway, I think this is due to just having a much higher fidelity "source of truth" to work from that is the preserved adult brain, whereas someone supposedly information-theoretically dead requires a lot more guess-work, perhaps truly impossibly too much more even for a superintelligence, to bring back convincingly.

lolspace 5y ago
Have you lost someone you've loved?
- Jach 5y ago
  Yes, but I get the unstated implication. I don't think it would be fair to apply it to me even though I think it may be fair to apply it to e.g. Kurzweil, unless he's made recent statements suggesting otherwise (I don't keep up with him). I currently have no expectation of seeing a convincing simulation/resurrection/recreation/continuation of any of them, or the ones I currently anticipate losing over the next few decades, even should I go on indefinitely living, and don't expect anything at all if/when I should die.
  - lolspace 5y ago
    Would you want to have an avatar of them? I don't think I would.
    - Jach 5y ago
      If the 'avatar' is convincing and can have a continued existence as a person independent of my interaction with it, i.e. I don't "have" them as a form of possession, yes. It does seem better than 50/50 to me though that some (maybe all) wouldn't want continued existence and would decide to go back to not existing (for all I can tell), there may even be strong predictive signs of that in the brain models such that they don't even need to be temporarily brought back and asked or first made to listen to arguments or just have some final-final talks with me/others before deciding. I'd accept that. For less convincing avatars where the point is just my own benefit of conversing with something like them when I want, from slightly like them to eerily like them, for one it's a weak yes, for the others I'm more indifferent -- it'd be more in the realm of curiosity than desire, like talking to a historical figure or a fictional character. The weak yes I expect will get weaker (as it already has, despite non-linear flare-ups/resurgences where it's temporarily stronger) and eventually match the others after long enough.
chrstphrknwtn 5y ago
I suppose... but I'll always know that it's some sort of cheap trick to make me think they're still here when really their consciousness ceased. Will the simulacrum age? Will it change? Will it ever surprise me or intrigue me? And if it does, is it something the dead person truly would have done? It's sort of like a photograph; a photograph seems to capture reality but all it shows is some abstraction of a physical reality at one point in time. The photograph tells me nothing about the current reality of anything depicted within. A simulacrum gives me the person I knew, when they died, and that's it. Perhaps comforting and interesting, but ultimately unfulfilling and unsettling I would imagine.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  To me, the whole idea of a recreation of a person for my own daily comfort just cheapens the former existence of that person. It's one thing to have genuine photographs or even videos since there's an obvious delineation between memory and reality. Photos can make it even more obvious that the person is no longer alive. But to turn someone into an AI for the sake of coping (and denial) turns them into a product. Maybe that's fine for some people. To me there's a line where it crosses over into offense. In no way do I think the status quo of my mental well-being is so important that I'd replace someone with a digital robot facsimile.

by Jach 5y ago

lolspace 5y ago

Have you lost someone you've loved?

Jach 5y ago
Yes, but I get the unstated implication. I don't think it would be fair to apply it to me even though I think it may be fair to apply it to e.g. Kurzweil, unless he's made recent statements suggesting otherwise (I don't keep up with him). I currently have no expectation of seeing a convincing simulation/resurrection/recreation/continuation of any of them, or the ones I currently anticipate losing over the next few decades, even should I go on indefinitely living, and don't expect anything at all if/when I should die.
- lolspace 5y ago
  Would you want to have an avatar of them? I don't think I would.
  - Jach 5y ago
    If the 'avatar' is convincing and can have a continued existence as a person independent of my interaction with it, i.e. I don't "have" them as a form of possession, yes. It does seem better than 50/50 to me though that some (maybe all) wouldn't want continued existence and would decide to go back to not existing (for all I can tell), there may even be strong predictive signs of that in the brain models such that they don't even need to be temporarily brought back and asked or first made to listen to arguments or just have some final-final talks with me/others before deciding. I'd accept that. For less convincing avatars where the point is just my own benefit of conversing with something like them when I want, from slightly like them to eerily like them, for one it's a weak yes, for the others I'm more indifferent -- it'd be more in the realm of curiosity than desire, like talking to a historical figure or a fictional character. The weak yes I expect will get weaker (as it already has, despite non-linear flare-ups/resurgences where it's temporarily stronger) and eventually match the others after long enough.

chrstphrknwtn 5y ago

I suppose... but I'll always know that it's some sort of cheap trick to make me think they're still here when really their consciousness ceased. Will the simulacrum age? Will it change? Will it ever surprise me or intrigue me? And if it does, is it something the dead person truly would have done? It's sort of like a photograph; a photograph seems to capture reality but all it shows is some abstraction of a physical reality at one point in time. The photograph tells me nothing about the current reality of anything depicted within. A simulacrum gives me the person I knew, when they died, and that's it. Perhaps comforting and interesting, but ultimately unfulfilling and unsettling I would imagine.

ravenstine 5y ago
To me, the whole idea of a recreation of a person for my own daily comfort just cheapens the former existence of that person. It's one thing to have genuine photographs or even videos since there's an obvious delineation between memory and reality. Photos can make it even more obvious that the person is no longer alive. But to turn someone into an AI for the sake of coping (and denial) turns them into a product. Maybe that's fine for some people. To me there's a line where it crosses over into offense. In no way do I think the status quo of my mental well-being is so important that I'd replace someone with a digital robot facsimile.