Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[GaryLouisSmith]

Tell me more about antinatalism.

I'm not a more usual anti-natalist, but they believe it is immoral to have children since this is making a choice for a future sentient being who may suffer (or will suffer). Some of them are utterly nihilistic in the everyday sense of hating life. Some are more focused on the moral issue of, more or less, putting a being in harm's way without its consent. But all life that is alive is consenting to life. In fact it is demanding it with every cell. I find the antinatalists annoying.

I'm gay. The whole birth and death thing is of no interest to me. I am religious and I look forward to being in a place without it. Still, I know that many people do like the cycle of life, birth and death. For them giving birth is a religious experience. I am not going to preach antinatalism to them. What another person likes is nothing to me. I have my likes and dislikes and I deal only with that.

[Felix]

Karpel Tunnel: Some are more focused on the moral issue of, more or less, putting a being in harm's way without its consent.

Considerate parents always ask the zygote for its consent - but if one does not speak Zygotian, this can be challenging.

GaryLouisSmith: The whole birth and death thing is of no interest to me.

Did you realize that before or after you were born?

[Mark1955]

I think that the creation of genuine artificial intelligence [i.e. something good enough to pass the Turing test] will present a challenge to religion and possibly a challenge to mankind's views on religion.

If I can't tell that something is not a human then do I have to assume it has a soul. Since we don't really understand what goes on in our brains to connect the simplistic electrical activity we can 'see' to the real person we know we are, how can we determine whether a made brain possesses a soul or not. It's easy, and I'm guessing most religions would go down this route simply to stifle the competition as they do with each other, to decide that there is a difference, even if we have no proof, and relegate AI to the same level as Heathen, or whatever other term your god uses for the inferior and unbelieving.

An artificial intelligence will know it's creator. Will it accept this knowledge, or will it create an internal myth that it was created by it's own version of god. It's easy to poke fun at Kryten's silicone heaven, but there are clearly evolutionary forces that favour the belief in a deity/afterlife otherwise the ideas would have died out long ago. Is it not possible, even probable, that a genuine artificial intelligence will be subject to the same forces and come to the same conclusions. If it does what will this say to humanity about the, then probable, unreality of our own religious constructs.

[GaryLouisSmith]

I'm guessing most religions would go down this route simply to stifle the competition as they do with each other, to decide that there is a difference, even if we have no proof, and relegate AI to the same level as Heathen, or whatever other term your god uses for the inferior and unbelieving.

First, before I tear into your reply and rip it to shreds, I would like to say that I see you are a fan of David Hume. Do you have any ideas you would like to share about his view on cause and effect? I call myself a Humean in that regard, though I not follow him into subjectivism.

Anyway, I'm a theist and I guess you could say I have a positive view on religion. You aren't and you don't, apparently. I'll bet you did not grow up in a religious environment, otherwise you would know that religious people LOVE to argue - with anybody and everybody - especially with each other. Look at Christianity. Actually there is no such thing as Christianity. No one single Christianity. From the beginning there have been many Christianities. Arguing heavily. And condemning each other to Hell. It's fun. I'm Christian, but not a pathetic New Age peace and love Christian. I learned from my holly-roller, Pentecostal, Jesus-name-only grandmother how to attack. I'm just saying that the only "stifling" that religious people do is jam the opposition's face in the spiritual mud. That's how we Heathen-haters work. It's the atheists who don't like to argue and just want to be left along. Back in the 1970s, I was an unrelenting in-your-face f*ggot activist. No one had any peace. I'm still at it. So do you want to argue about Hume? Or do you want to be like most atheists and forego the chance?

[GaryLouisSmith]

Did you realize that before or after you were born?

Beats me.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Considerate parents always ask the zygote for its consent - but if one does not speak Zygotian, this can be challenging.

And I assume you are mocking the idea of consent perhaps on the side of criticizing the anti-natalists who would agree and say this is why we should not have children.

[Belindi]

The AI super being(s) will need DNA forms as slaves to supply the AI superbeing(s) with fuel and replacement parts.

If the AI superbeing needs an other or others to cooperate with for its maintenance it will have to take at least some slight care of it/them albeit they/it are slaves.Thus, the AI superbeings owe it to the slaves to take care of them.
The moral for us biological people here and now is about personhood. The AI superbeing(s) is/are a person(s) as defined by it's having personal needs. Whether or not it will be capable of regarding slaves as sentient beings as opposed to commodities depends upon how intelligent it is.

Fact is a human being cannot be wholly intelligent unless he knows how others feel. If he can't do so his judgements will be erratic.The AI superbeing can't manage its biological slaves very well unless it understands how they feel. Machiavelli has explained that the ruler governs more efficiently when the subjects want to cooperate with him than when he rules by terror.

[Karpel Tunnel]

The AI super being(s) will need DNA forms as slaves to supply the AI superbeing(s) with fuel and replacement parts.

Unless is has robots.

If the AI superbeing needs an other or others to cooperate with for its maintenance it will have to take at least some slight care of it/them albeit they/it are slaves.Thus, the AI superbeings owe it to the slaves to take care of them.

If it thinks pratically and isn't mentally ill, enraged, suicidal, or finds it's own way (robots, god knows what technology) of performing tasks, or only needs three people and one tracking dog.

Fact is a human being cannot be wholly intelligent unless he knows how others feel. If he can't do so his judgements will be erratic.The AI superbeing can't manage its biological slaves very well unless it understands how they feel. Machiavelli has explained that the ruler governs more efficiently when the subjects want to cooperate with him than when he rules by terror.

And we might just not be lucky enough for the AI machievelli to come along and convince the other(s) before it or they destroy us.

[Belindi]

And we might just not be lucky enough for the AI machievelli to come along and convince the other(s) before it or they destroy us.

My reaction to the AI takeover is as you say. I feel I ought to think about possible life -affirming effects of the AI takeover, in view of the urgent need of a new moral paradigm.

[Sculptor1]

Fears concerning an AI "take-over" are fraught with disinformation, and nonsense.
It is nothing more than we have now, except more so.
Cyberdyne systems is not going to produce Terminators or anything like them. Computers are not going to take over the world.
We are already in an as-bad-as-it-can be scenario; automated systems are doing the jobs where people once were. IN a neoliberal world this means poverty for the many and riches for the few, with a slow downwards spiral where production gets less with fewer companies producing fewer good because people who are increasingly wageless - or on increasingly lower wages can't afford to buy what the factories are making.
Try getting info out of your phone company that makes sense.

[Karpel Tunnel]

Fears concerning an AI "take-over" are fraught with disinformation, and nonsense.

It is not nonsense to consider that AIs, if more intelligent than us, will be a threat. Just as we have been a threat to less intelligent species. There are plenty of very intelligent people who are concerned, and even people who are positive about AI are spending a lot of time and energy trying to make sure nothing catastrophic happens. Unfortunatly we have corporations and states racing each other, and some of these states less careful than other, to come up with AIs.

We are already in an as-bad-as-it-can be scenario; automated systems are doing the jobs where people once were. IN a neoliberal world this means poverty for the many and riches for the few, with a slow downwards spiral where production gets less with fewer companies producing fewer good because people who are increasingly wageless - or on increasingly lower wages can't afford to buy what the factories are making.
Try getting info out of your phone company that makes sense.

I agree with all of this. Jobs are also being cut right now in middle class professions, like human resources positions, as AIs take over various tasks, reducing the number of personel needed. This will only continue. Right now they can't perform all the tasks of a human in those professions, but they are whittling away, so where a company needed 7 people now it needs 3.

[Sculptor1]

Fears concerning an AI "take-over" are fraught with disinformation, and nonsense.

It is not nonsense to consider that AIs, if more intelligent than us, will be a threat.

You are talking the exact type of nonsense that I mentioned.
You have not a clue what AI is.
All AIs are is a collection of algorithms coded by humans. AI is not "more intelligent" since they have no volition, intention or self purpose.

Just as we have been a threat to less intelligent species.

Rubbish.
You might as well say that a toaster is a threat to humans because they are hotter, or an automatic train a threat as it is quicker than a human.

There are plenty of very intelligent people who are concerned, and even people who are positive about AI are spending a lot of time and energy trying to make sure nothing catastrophic happens. Unfortunatly we have corporations and states racing each other, and some of these states less careful than other, to come up with AIs.

We are already in an as-bad-as-it-can be scenario; automated systems are doing the jobs where people once were. IN a neoliberal world this means poverty for the many and riches for the few, with a slow downwards spiral where production gets less with fewer companies producing fewer good because people who are increasingly wageless - or on increasingly lower wages can't afford to buy what the factories are making.
Try getting info out of your phone company that makes sense.

I agree with all of this. Jobs are also being cut right now in middle class professions, like human resources positions, as AIs take over various tasks, reducing the number of personel needed. This will only continue. Right now they can't perform all the tasks of a human in those professions, but they are whittling away, so where a company needed 7 people now it needs 3.

AIs are doing mundane boring jobs. The real threat is not the AIs but the system that dis-empowers working people.
The real threat is economics.

[Karpel Tunnel]

You are talking the exact type of nonsense that I mentioned.

Tell it to Stephen Hawking level minds that its nonsense.

You have not a clue what AI is.
All AIs are is a collection of algorithms coded by humans. AI is not "more intelligent" since they have no volition, intention or self purpose.

That's what AIs are now, that is not what they are working on.

Rubbish.

Right back at you.

You might as well say that a toaster is a threat to humans because they are hotter, or an automatic train a threat as it is quicker than a human.

What a terrible argument. Heat and intelligence are not equivalent.

AIs are doing mundane boring jobs.

Which are part of the variety of complicated jobs. I've had jobs that included tasks that would be nightmares if they were the only tasks but they offered nice little breaks as portions of the jobs. And every year the weak not really yet AIs we have can take on harder tasks. You're responding as if the levels are stable. They are not. And in the example I gave they are right now cutting jobs from the middle classes using the current level AIs that corporations can afford - which are of course weaker than the ones governments have and those in turn are weaker than the ones that are coming.

But since you are the type of person who cannot concede anything. some guy who has all the answers, you couldn't acknowledge that, yes, they are cutting jobs from even middle class professions.
Back on ignore you go, you little bitter man.
You haven't a shred of honor in you.

[Felix]

Felix: Considerate parents always ask the zygote for its consent - but if one does not speak Zygotian, this can be challenging.

Karpel Tunnel: And I assume you are mocking the idea of consent perhaps on the side of criticizing the anti-natalists who would agree and say this is why we should not have children.

Yes. But there are some who maintain that prenatal consent can be obtained, call it consecration to the act of procreation. Aleister Crowley elaborates on the idea in his novel Moonchild, which you can find here: https://bit.ly/2oeyQvd

"Need I add that, as the book itself demonstrates beyond all doubt, all persons and incidents are purely the figment of a disordered imagination?" - Aleister Crowley

[Felix]

My my, the first line in Chapter II of Moonchild sounds rather like something that GaryLouisSmith would say!

“THERE is little difference - barring our Occidental subtlety – between Chinese philosophy and English,” observed Cyril Grey. “The Chinese bury a man alive in an ant heap; the English introduce him to a woman.”