I'm actually optimistic about corporate personhood.

[BabylonHoruv]

From now on, I'll just stick to posting one liners and reading about your shitty lives in Open Bar.  Everything else I try to talk about has this shabby crap happen to it.

If your ideas can't take the sort of pretty basic criticism I am leveling at them you are never gonna get the sort of funding and backing you need to actually make your dream a reality.

[BabylonHoruv]

You're ascribing human traits to non human entities.

Also, there's no reason to assume that robot bodies will be the initial state, rather than entities that exist on a computer.

He does that a lot, and seems to get really pissy when we call him on it.

[BabylonHoruv]

Kind of on topic but on a bit of a tangent, I saw a piece online where an author was suggesting giving rights to things like watersheds and ecosystems that are incorporated.  Basically as a way to have them compensated for pollution and for services they provide such as the water treatment provided by swamps and such.

[Jasper]

You're ascribing human traits to non human entities.

Also, there's no reason to assume that robot bodies will be the initial state, rather than entities that exist on a computer.

He does that a lot, and seems to get really pissy when we call him on it.

You were derailing my thread and being condescending, and I dislike discussing AI theory here.  So instead, I'm discussing AI politics.

Kind of on topic but on a bit of a tangent, I saw a piece online where an author was suggesting giving rights to things like watersheds and ecosystems that are incorporated.  Basically as a way to have them compensated for pollution and for services they provide such as the water treatment provided by swamps and such.

That's pretty cool, and not really tangential at all.  Granting rights to nonhuman entities is the precise purpose of this thread.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

You're ascribing human traits to non human entities.

Also, there's no reason to assume that robot bodies will be the initial state, rather than entities that exist on a computer.

He does that a lot, and seems to get really pissy when we call him on it.

You were derailing my thread and being condescending, and I dislike discussing AI theory here.  So instead, I'm discussing AI politics.

Kind of on topic but on a bit of a tangent, I saw a piece online where an author was suggesting giving rights to things like watersheds and ecosystems that are incorporated.  Basically as a way to have them compensated for pollution and for services they provide such as the water treatment provided by swamps and such.

That's pretty cool, and not really tangential at all.  Granting rights to nonhuman entities is the precise purpose of this thread.

As well as extraterrestrials and sign language bonobos? Actually creating bonobo communes that can sign is a line of thinking I like to take. One bonobo has a pretty good command of it because he observed what his mother was being taught and picked it up like humans pick up language. His mother was not nearly as good as he ended up becoming.

[Jasper]

Them too, yes.  But I'd warn against biological chauvanism.  I think, best case (Utopian) scenario, any conscious, communicating entities should have some basic civil rights and freedoms.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Them too, yes.  But I'd warn against biological chauvanism.  I think, best case (Utopian) scenario, any conscious, communicating entities should have some basic civil rights and freedoms.

Naturally. It is a pretty interesting topic, how human-nonhuman relations would work

[Jasper]

Or, more likely, not work.

This is a complicated subject, and I'm not seeing much hope for good fixes.

[BabylonHoruv]

I'm kind of hoping the bonobos manage to get to the point where they can fo4rcefully demand their rights.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I'm kind of hoping the bonobos manage to get to the point where they can fo4rcefully demand their rights.

Bonobo rebellion! It's like a hippie love-in, but hairier.

[BadBeast]

We can't even grant rights to half the people on the planet, so when, exactly do the machines, and/or other creatures get rights? Is that before all the people get fair treatment, or after?
What if they abuse those rights, and start to disenfranchise Mankind, like in Terminator? (That should be a warning to us all. Google / Skynet?)

[Jasper]

I know it's all very ethically exciting to get outraged about, but it's less a matter of what's right and more a matter of keeping them from killing us.

As for Google becoming Skynet?  In the words of Admiral Robert Willard, "We don't anticipate that."

[BadBeast]

That makes me feel a whole lot better. (Microsoft then?)

[Jasper]

I feel they are too ROI oriented to really bother.

The people who make strong AGI are probably going to be the people who are driven to do it regardless of how useful it is, just because they're obsessed.

[BadBeast]

Like crazy scientists? Obsessed with playing God? We've already seen a fair few of them, and they usually have some self defeating dynamic in their theories, (Like being batshit crazy too ahead of their time / morally repugnant)

Or maybe it will happen accidentally, I mean evolve spontaneously. I mean, it happened before, that spark of sentience, right? And we're still killing each other over differences of opinion as to who is right or wrong to blame for the event.
But saying that, I'm actually quite optimistic too, I'm just being an arsehole playing Devil's advocate for lulz.