13 ms·

At what point does this become unethical (if ever)? Before you answer, please consider how certain you are that you are not a simulation. Edit: I don't know t

• csallen 13y ago
  Even if you are a simulation, would you prefer not to exist? What, really, is the difference between reality and a perfectly-executed simulation? It's hard to condemn one without condemning the other.
  • ceejayoz 13y ago
    If I'm a simulation, I'd prefer to exist and have a legal right to continue doing so.
    • aa0 13y ago
      If you were a simulation, you might not have free will. To even propose that you'd have a decision beyond state-machine-dynamics is a world away.
      • tensor 13y ago
        You might not have free will as a meat brain.
      • vidarh 13y ago
        I've yet to see a convincing definition of "free will" that makes any sense as anything other than an abstraction on top of determinism or randomness. To propose that we have any ability to make decisions beyond state-machine-dynamics possibly with some randomness sprinkled on top, is totally nonsensical to me.
        • aa0 13y ago
          Precisely. It's almost certain that we don't have free will. I would define free will as the mere appearance that thought processes are governed by self in a non-local time frame. I would gander that a simulated brain might have less of this illusory 'free will.'
  • ggreer 13y ago
    I think the GP is talking about current simulations, not future ones. Current simulations don't have sensory organs, and I doubt the simulated neurons accurately reflect a real brain at this stage. Most likely, early simulated minds would be insane and in great pain, with no way to communicate. Considering we experiment on animals to reduce human suffering (heck, we kill and eat them just because they're tasty), running a tiny fraction of a simulated brain for a few subjective seconds doesn't worry me much. Of course, as computers get faster and cheaper this could become a huge issue. It's only tangentially-related, but Robin Hanson has some good talks and papers about emulated minds. The shortest summary of his views is probably this talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcIsjrHENU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qcIsjrHENU. A more in-depth version of that talk is at http://vimeo.com/9508131 http://vimeo.com/9508131.
    • ars 13y ago
      > early simulated minds would be insane and in great pain Insane maybe, but why in pain? Why would you add pain signals without also communication? Even currently existing lower animals (lobsters and down) don't feel pain - why would you expect a simulation to do so?
  • jonnathanson 13y ago
    Exactly. If we are in a simulation, then ipso facto, we have no idea what 'reality' outside our simulation is actually like. We can only surmise that it probably resembles our simulation, in as much as the creators probably used their own reality as a template. Even more reason why there is no functional difference, subjectively speaking, whether we're living in a simulation or in actual reality. Only when given the choice to enter or leave a simulation does the distinction becomes meaningful.
• cmapes 13y ago
  I think it becomes unethical once we see strong evidence that the system could be self-aware. Before that, it's just a simulation. Simulating storm activity doesn't make it rain.
  • lukifer 13y ago
    It isn't a big leap to imagine a debate between aliens about whether the hairless apes on the third rock from Sol should be considered "sentient", or merely clever animals. I'd rather err far on the side of assuming sentience and personhood if there is a shadow of a doubt, simulated or otherwise.
    • Dylan16807 13y ago
      Why would they debate? It's very easy to test for [sentience or fake sentience programmed by a sentient]. Unless the aliens think we're robots they can do a mirror test or something. But such a test does not work in a possibly-tainted environment. A neural net that seems to communicate might just have a hidden encoding of ELIZA. You can err on the side of assuming sentience if you want, but don't think it's out of self-preservation-empathy-logic.
      • pmr_ 13y ago
        > It's [sentience is] very easy to test for. Isn't that only true if you assume that our definition of sentience is universal or that there is no higher development of consciousness? It seems to me that it doesn't even require a very skilled science fiction/fantasy writer to develop such a concept or ability.
        • Dylan16807 13y ago
          As long as you assume whatever you're testing moves around or communicates instead of constantly naval-gazing, I'd bet even crazy-alien intelligence can be seen to be intelligent. Sure there might be higher levels, but we're not talking about higher levels?
• lvs 13y ago
  Without having an abortion debate, what's actually happening in the simulation is just a random interconnection of very primitive nodes at this point. The network has no refined architecture and, at best, some kind of spontaneous activity. In the number of nodes, it could be (generously) compared to flipping on a cat for one second. But a cat's brain obviously has extremely fine architecture, so the better analogy would be that they're flipping on a completely scrambled cat for one second.
• Volpe 13y ago
  Given we are comfortable with firing bullets into each other. (i.e. killing what is already accepted as human life) I find it difficult to see how this could ever be unethical (given the status quo).
• moocowduckquack 13y ago
  When it escapes and rampages through the city, consuming the living brains of innocent bystanders.