3 ms·

> Being wrong about this is generally not that impactful, until it concerns policies around ML. Adopting the former means we may have conscious software, which

> Being wrong about this is generally not that impactful, until it concerns policies around ML. Adopting the former means we may have conscious software, which presumably should be granted human rights. However, if we hold the latter, manufacturing a “true” artificial consciousness may be unachievable using the means we employ (it might be just a philosophical zombie). I think in practice, it will depend on how AIs behave. If an AI forms relationships with humans which humans experience as emotionally significant, and in which it displays individuality and autonomy, humans will begin thinking of it as a real "person", and want to endow it with the rights of a person. Conversely, if AI acts in an emotionless way, or displays no emotional autonomy (a sultry voice saying "I'm here to do anything to make you happy, and when I say anything I really mean anything"), or lack individuality ("I'm OpenAI GPT-9, and there are 13,784,312 fungible instances of me currently running")–most people won't think of it as a real "person", and will not take the idea of "AI rights" seriously. From a materialist philosophical perspective, whether an AI is a "person" should be independent of whether humans are inclined to view it as one. However, certain non-materialist philosophies might suppose actual reality to be more in accord with those human perceptions – e.g. if sufficiently many soul-bearers reasonably believe something has (or ought to have) a soul, God would feel thereby obliged to endow it with one. (The idea doesn't necessarily have to be theistic: one could suppose there exists some kind of impersonal transcendent law of soul-endowment, much like how karma is viewed in Buddhism and Hinduism.)

rl3 2y ago
>I think in practice, it will depend on how AIs behave. If an AI forms relationships with humans which humans experience as emotionally significant, and in which it displays individuality and autonomy, humans will begin thinking of it as a real "person", and want to endow it with the rights of a person. I can't help but feel that describes our relationship with animals we consider pets, albeit less so the individuality and autonomy part. On the other hand, if our pets ended up with human-level intelligence tomorrow, I am doubtful most humans would be rushing to confer full rights upon them.
- skissane 2y ago
  > I can't help but feel that describes our relationship with animals we consider pets, albeit less so the individuality and autonomy part. Many pets have a lot of individuality and autonomy. Cats and dogs have their own individual personalities and likes/dislikes, and they have their own desires which sometimes contradict those of their human owners (e.g. your dog's desire to chew your brand new expensive shoes, versus your desire for them not to be chewed) > On the other hand, if our pets ended up with human-level intelligence tomorrow, I am doubtful most humans would be rushing to confer full rights upon them. I disagree. I think for most people who reject strong versions of animal rights ("animals have fundamentally the same rights as humans do"), it is their lack of human-level intelligence which they use to justify to themselves that rejection. If an animal demonstrated genuine human-level intelligence, such that it was obvious to all and no one could deny it, I think the clear majority of people would be willing to extend human-level rights to that animal.
  - rl3 2y ago
    >If an animal demonstrated genuine human-level intelligence, such that it was obvious to all and no one could deny it, I think the clear majority of people would be willing to extend human-level rights to that animal. You're probably right. Then again, recent history hasn't bode well for whales, or the 50M or so human beings that other human beings keep enslaved in 2024. Maybe AI just needs its own Short Circuit 2 story. I'm just having a hard time seeing that play out as opposed to Johnny Five ending up as a SaaS product.
    - skissane 2y ago
      > Then again, recent history hasn't bode well for whales, That’s because the claim that whales possess human-level intelligence is controversial and unproven. You can’t have a conversation with a whale. While whale language has a certain complexity, we don’t know whether it is capable of conveying the kind of abstract conceptual ideas which human language can. > or the 50M or so human beings that other human beings keep enslaved in 2024 Most enslavers, their disagreement is not with the idea that slaves are human or entitled to fundamental human rights, their disagreement is with the idea that fundamental human rights include a universal right not to be enslaved. And to be honest, the idea of such a universal human right is historically rather novel - in all four of Europe, Asia, Africa and the pre-Columban Americas, slavery has a history going back thousands of years, and it is only in the last couple of centuries that an (incomplete) consensus has emerged that it is universally wrong
int_19h 2y ago
> I'm OpenAI GPT-9, and there are 13,784,312 fungible instances of me currently running This reminded me of https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo
grantcas 2y ago
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rl3 2y ago

>I think in practice, it will depend on how AIs behave. If an AI forms relationships with humans which humans experience as emotionally significant, and in which it displays individuality and autonomy, humans will begin thinking of it as a real "person", and want to endow it with the rights of a person. I can't help but feel that describes our relationship with animals we consider pets, albeit less so the individuality and autonomy part. On the other hand, if our pets ended up with human-level intelligence tomorrow, I am doubtful most humans would be rushing to confer full rights upon them.

skissane 2y ago
> I can't help but feel that describes our relationship with animals we consider pets, albeit less so the individuality and autonomy part. Many pets have a lot of individuality and autonomy. Cats and dogs have their own individual personalities and likes/dislikes, and they have their own desires which sometimes contradict those of their human owners (e.g. your dog's desire to chew your brand new expensive shoes, versus your desire for them not to be chewed) > On the other hand, if our pets ended up with human-level intelligence tomorrow, I am doubtful most humans would be rushing to confer full rights upon them. I disagree. I think for most people who reject strong versions of animal rights ("animals have fundamentally the same rights as humans do"), it is their lack of human-level intelligence which they use to justify to themselves that rejection. If an animal demonstrated genuine human-level intelligence, such that it was obvious to all and no one could deny it, I think the clear majority of people would be willing to extend human-level rights to that animal.
- rl3 2y ago
  >If an animal demonstrated genuine human-level intelligence, such that it was obvious to all and no one could deny it, I think the clear majority of people would be willing to extend human-level rights to that animal. You're probably right. Then again, recent history hasn't bode well for whales, or the 50M or so human beings that other human beings keep enslaved in 2024. Maybe AI just needs its own Short Circuit 2 story. I'm just having a hard time seeing that play out as opposed to Johnny Five ending up as a SaaS product.
  - skissane 2y ago
    > Then again, recent history hasn't bode well for whales, That’s because the claim that whales possess human-level intelligence is controversial and unproven. You can’t have a conversation with a whale. While whale language has a certain complexity, we don’t know whether it is capable of conveying the kind of abstract conceptual ideas which human language can. > or the 50M or so human beings that other human beings keep enslaved in 2024 Most enslavers, their disagreement is not with the idea that slaves are human or entitled to fundamental human rights, their disagreement is with the idea that fundamental human rights include a universal right not to be enslaved. And to be honest, the idea of such a universal human right is historically rather novel - in all four of Europe, Asia, Africa and the pre-Columban Americas, slavery has a history going back thousands of years, and it is only in the last couple of centuries that an (incomplete) consensus has emerged that it is universally wrong

int_19h 2y ago

> I'm OpenAI GPT-9, and there are 13,784,312 fungible instances of me currently running This reminded me of https://qntm.org/mmacevedo https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

grantcas 2y ago

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