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Serious question to those who agree with the headline: If an NPC in a video game behaves realistically enough to appear sentient, is it immoral to kill that cha
by brushfoot 4y ago
Serious question to those who agree with the headline: If an NPC in a video game behaves realistically enough to appear sentient, is it immoral to kill that character, and if so, what should the consequences for the killer be?
- bee_rider 4y agoIf we were to become able to design a sentient computer program, then I guess we could investigate and understand it fully (it is in the end just bits). After understanding it fully, we could use that information for design a computer program that has the mindset of an Ork from Warhammer 40k -- essentially, one which enjoys battle and doesn't mind dying -- to play against in video games. So, I think this is not a big problem. In general, imbuing a program with a survival instinct seems a bit cruel, because we know they'll be terminated eventually (also inconvenient, as who'd want to try and shut down a computer program that is trying to stay alive? We have enough trouble shutting down runaway processes that have become stubborn by accident).