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This is where it is the responsibility of the users to maintain their own humanity...

Kind of unfortunate... As you stated in a previous thread this media is what most call a "Cold Media" as emotion is very difficult to implement in written communications.

The phone is often somewhat of a "Cold Media" as well...

Personal interaction is now and will always be where "it" is "at"...

But also you have to think that if not for all this connectivity we would not have had this conversation... So some good will come from it and some bad will come from it (both sides already proven daily)...

Actually i have been programming for 20+ years so i do NOT lack programming knowledge.

A piece of software can be written with general guidelines (rules?) and allowed to learn associations and methods via experimentation.
The programmer didnt TELL the program what it learned, they told it HOW to learn. This is the same way that nature equiped humans with the builtin ability to learn, and even pre-installed some knowledge (ie physical things like pain is bad, how a heart beats, the difference between quiet and loud, etc.

Also do you really think that humans think prior to conception? Hello... talk about turning on the computer!
Take a neural network with enough connections, connect it to some input devices (nerve endings to skin, muscles, taste, hearing, sight), preconfigure some basic rules (our hind brain is pretty much hard-wired and does not need to learn how to work), add the ability to store + replay nerve recordings (remember tastes, smells, images) and preset some valuations (ie recoil from pain, eat to avoid/remove hunger pangs, etc), and you have a primitive brain.

Emotions developed long before SAPIENT intelligence. My comment was that so many authors and even programmers assume that an AI would have emotions AFTER developing complex thinking. You restate my opinion that emotions are REQUIRED for any intelligence beyond the simplest. They are how creatures react and evaluate their reactions. ie angry means attack, sad means regret something and learn to change actions, scared means run away, jealousy, lust, etc. The more involved the emotion, the more intelligent the creature can be.

This is the biggest example of my point. Data HAD to have some emotions to act anywhere near as human as he did prior to getting the chip. Emotions are really a mathematical bias of how a creature reacts to stimuli, and a brain is based on AMOUNTS of input from section to section of the brain. Thats why chemical stimulants and depressants effect us the way they do. They enhance or depress the affects of various areas of the brain, or increase or decrease the reaction to certain hormones in the brain.

Actually hormones are the precursors to emotions. They are the cause and the carriers of the various emotions.

This is why emotions are neccessary for an AI. Without emotions an intelligence has no valuation on actions. Emotions are mental state. And implementing human/primate emotions are not that much harder to implement than simple pain/fight/fear/mate emotional states. They are in fact easier to implement than the more advanced intellectual states.

After all, all animals react with some degree of emotion, and more advanced mammals share many/most of human emotions (dogs react with hate, love, fear, jealousy etc).


Your basic fallacy is your hang up on software needing to be told what to do. A good AI just needs to be programmed with some rules, abilities, and valuations, and then can learn what they can do, evaluate what they should do or want to do, and the react accordingly. Just because most current software isn't programmed this way doesnt mean computers are forever incapable of being programmed this way.

Well I apologize for making a remark like that. It was quite ignorant of me. My knowledge in program is alot less that what you have. (I'm still a student)
But think about it. You are saying that we will completely eliminate the human equation. Do you truly think that this is possible, never mind the ethics of such an idea?
Hypothetically, lets say that the computer no longer has need of our input for it to do a job.
Will the computer start to think about other matters? God forbid it starts to think against the Prime Directives (if the master has already programmed such into the machine). Do you program it to think of only one task? A Deep blue type of computer?
Now looking at the ethics of this, would it be right for us to control a thinking "sentient" machine or in this case "being"? Wouldn't this be tantamount to slavery?
I quite enjoy these debates.

Edited for typos

I just want to chime in with the whole "baby versus a PC" thing. First off, babies ARE programmed, if not in any conventional way. (Mommy DNA / 2) + (Daddy DNA / 2) = Baby DNA. Then the Baby DNA "program" is used to create the baby, along with input from its environment.

In the same way, if we could program DNA in a computer sense, we would be creating Program A that then creates Program B. Program B is what you would compare to the baby, not Program A.

Do I have a point? No, not really. But this is an interesting logic excercise.

My Kensington trackball has photon torpedos 8)

It might be tantamount to serfdom or serfery if we allowed the sentient machine to reside on our lands.

In twenty years time the human race will be wondering why they stupidly built computers that need 1Kw to power them, why they drove SUV's that get 10 miles to the gallon. We'll wonder why we poisoned ourselves with chemicals like MSG, and why we ever thought global warming didn't exist.

As for PC's.... well if we haven't wiped ourselves out due to global drought or war... then maybe we'll use ultra efficient sub 1ghz core micro client at home. It will interface to some grid based noded computer system using a wireless connection over the power lines. The only difference between PC's will be case styling as all data will be stored remotely and all external devices will be wireless too. There will be neural interfaces and RFID type tracking will keep everything in order, and the government will know everything you do... I mean everything. First person shooters will be banned due to the high level of violence... leaving only the military to have access to them. Tetris will be taught to 6 month old babies as a classic strategy game.

Okay I could be wrong but I think that the unexpected will be what happens... because we are almost always incorrect when we try to predict the future.

That is quite some specualtion you're doing there, and i like it!

Let's just hope pcs are that powerful, without the MASSIVE power drain.

It might be tantamount to serfdom or serfery if we allowed the sentient machine to reside on our lands.

Can you imagine saying, "Bow, you knave" to a calculator? Robin Hood - CPU style....

All I want is a computer that can come up with the all meaning question to the ultimate answer....


The meaning of Lif

I wish my computer could do that :-(

I hope that isn't a reference to IQ scores ?

I quite agree that the morality of AI use needs to be addressed.

If you create an AI for a job, isn't there the implicit threat you will turn it off (kill it) or reprogram it (mind wipe/control)?

If you build an AI for a single job, then wipe it afterward in preparation for the next job, is that murder?

What happens if you have a cpu capable of hosting multiple AIs? What are the ethics of replicating the AI when you need one for something, then flushing it or merging it with the main AI. (ie the matrix idea of replicating Agent Smith a 1000 times when you need to).
Is it murder if you terminate ANY instance of the AI, or just if you terminate/flush the last copy.
Is it murder/immoral if you restore an AI back to a backup copy (ie because it learned the wrong things).
Is it immoral to artificially impair/dumb down an AI for a particular job? (ie make a stupid version targeted for a menial job, or limit its memory so it forgets anything new after a day)

If you can make a medium level AI (say dog or chimp) and put it in a robot, it that ok? What if we then selectively enhance certain parts to make it better at the job without inducing human level intelligence? Is this any more a form of slavery than breeding a species of dog that is good at and likes some form of work (ie guard dog or drug sniffer or blind support). What if you breed (tweek in an artificial reality?) these until you have the perfect design, then mass produce them?

And of course the age old Sci Fi question of what if you add more "neurons" to the AI's design in order to get a smarter AI?
Is there a limit and do we even want to see an AI with an IQ of 500 or 5000?

Of course you have to address the same issue if we ever figure out how to add another layer of grey matter to our brains. I even remember a book that had a plot line about this.