Banshee,
Laughing at my life’s work huh, I dunno, some people are so insensitive, sigh!
Think about it. You're playing creator of a new race, so to say. With that, there'll come the same problems as with humans.
The theory here is that human intelligence is currently limited and cannot grow short term, and that with AI and greater processing power these new machines will achieve superior intelligence quickly. Hopefully they will be able to avoid the foolishness of us low-intelligent humans.
So you prefer a civilization of robots, above humans.
Yes, especially if I’m one of them. I have had the privilege to work with some very clever people and that gives me hope that AI machines could be equally impressive. There are so many people who act so irrationally that I welcome the opportunity to be surrounded by superior intelligence.
Downloadable minds. And when will the minds be downloaded to such a super robot? At the end of a human life-time, or immediately when they are born? Or somewhere in between? Of course it's easier to make robot babies then too. Jees, now that sketches a complete different picture.
LOL, you don’t want to be downloaded, you need to be uploaded, i.e. transfer your mind to something larger where your intelligence can be expanded.
As for when: That’s more difficult to answer. We need very accurate brain scanners and at present such machines end up destroying the brain. The best approach is to vitrify the brain and slice it very finely so the scanner can obtain very high-resolution images and build a detailed 3D matrix before digitizing. Or IOW you’ll be dead at this point. A non-destructive process or the use of nanobots have been postulated but these don’t look too promising just yet. Perhaps the super intelligence of our AI machines might help us solve these problems sooner than we could do it ourselves. I’d like to think it will occur within the next 50 years, i.e. in my lifetime, but the testing needed to ensure the upload is perfect is going to be very time consuming. I’d like to avoid having to go through cryo-preservation, but I suspect that might be inevitable.
But when the process is available I suspect we will have some ethical issues – back on topic right? If the process is destructive then the bio-person will be dead and his/her robo upload will live instead. That’s the easiest approach but the religionists are going to go nuts. Effectively they will see this as suicide or euthanasia or similar, but more likely they will object because the new uploads will not contain a ‘soul’ and can never be seen as real beings.
But if the process is non-destructive then you will exist as both a bio-person as well as an upload. At what point do you decide to terminate your bio-self to allow your upload to take over your life role? Effectively you will have cloned yourself and we know what stink is currently being debated now about the ethics of reproductive cloning. But perhaps this is very different. I would favor remaining in an anesthetic state during the scanning process and upload, and once the process has been checked for completeness and correctness then a simple overdose of more anesthetic will terminate my bio body.
Ignoring the ethics and practicality for the moment: I suspect the biggest deciding factor of ‘when’ will be the price. These robo-machines will need to be highly sophisticated and refined devices. I suspect a price tag exceeding $1million (based on today’s values) will be quite typical. If there is mass interest then prices will fall. But most likely Robo-sapiens and regular humans will mix together for some time. Of course since Robo-sapiens will not be subjected to death then a 100+ year mortgage would not be unreasonable. There will be other questions as to changes in the economy when this process becomes common, e.g. eating and drinking will no longer be needed. So farming and all food production industries will be redundant. Some degree of economic chaos seems inevitable.
Enough – I can go on for a long time on this, and I’m wandering away from ethical issues.
Let's hope this AI and eventually, Robo-Sapiens will not go out of hand Cris.
That is I suspect a nice dream, but human history shows we are extraordinarily bad at managing major changes. It is almost certain there will be considerable upheaval, and chaos.
Cris
