Asguard,
This is not really about putting humans IN robots but having sentient robots.
There won’t be a difference for very long.
And from Pollux –
If they're not going to be our slaves then what are they going to do, what purpose to we have of creating them on a mass scale if we're not going to profit [financially]?
Well not everyone seeks financial profit, that is simply the current economic mechanism that is driving progress, I hope there will be a more generally attractive goal in life soon.
But so what will be the purpose of building sentient machines?
Surely to serve us in the same way that we build any other machines. We use machines because they enhance our capabilities or just make life more enjoyable. So why would intelligent machines be any different?
I think there will be machines that have a degree of intelligence that will be below self-awareness and probably incapable of learning new tasks beyond its programming. This will be more like a ‘simplistic rules’ based program and should never really be considered intelligent, it will just appear that way. But for complex tasks, such as driving a car where good sensory input and rapid reflexes are useful and where intelligence is needed to make judgment decisions then such a degree of intelligent machine would be useful.
But we will build machines that have no limitations and where their ability to learn and adapt will be open ended, much like humans. If it has the same degree of neural network complexity as humans then it should achieve similar levels of awareness and desire as any human. In short it will be our equal. So why would we build such a machine?
1. Because we can. The same reason people decide to climb Everest, logically pointless, but emotionally rewarding.
2. To replace human workers so people no longer have to work for a living.
3. To use in environments where humans cannot venture.
4. To fight our wars for us.
5. To be our servants.
6. Companionship.
7. Instant family.
I suspect that if they are our equals then we would have no way to force them to do items 2 through 5.
Unless we can control or enslave them then their existence appears to have little benefit apart from representing a potential threat to us.
But I have said before that the rapid change in technology means they would not remain our equals for very long. The whole period of ethical concerns and how we treat mechanical equals will be very short.
So as
Polux has asked – where is the profit for us?
We will be faced with a unique position; we will have created beings superior to us in every way. We will no longer be the dominant intelligence on the planet. Will we be able to control this creation? No.
If you are faced with a group of apes, who are among the most intelligent animals on the planet, then you know that it will not be too difficult to outwit them. In the same way our intelligent machine will likely be able to easily outwit us and seek its own independent survival especially if it feels we represent a threat.
I strongly believe that the only real profit for us will be to use the knowledge of building such machines and the associated technology, is to enhance our own capabilities. Uploading is the only real profit in the whole venture, i.e. to make ourselves equal to the machines.
Every machine we have ever built is because it helps us in some way. We never build machines so they can simply exist. Building intelligent machines leads us into a different paradigm where the only way we can really benefit is to become the machine.
So if we can adapt ourselves to use the same technology then we can be equals with other intelligent machines. At this point AI machines and uploaded humans will be impossible to tell apart.
At which point the question of ethics will disappear, since if we create more AI machines then that will simply be our new form of reproduction.
A point about the term AI: Intelligence cannot be artificial. Something is either intelligent or it isn’t. If intelligence exists then it is real. The term ‘artificial’ here means man made. But how it comes into existence is largely irrelevant.
Cris