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 accuratel

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.