X-Message-Number: 16186
Subject: Re: Important question for the isomorphists
Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 16:25:32 -0500
From: Will Dye <>

In response to a statement that a machine-based life form is 
obviously not a "person", Jeffrey Soreff replied:

> As far as I can tell, a sufficiently good simulation of a 
> person would have the same subjective experience and the 
> same social interactions as a biological person.  I, for 
> one, would include such simulations in the same category 
> of persons as the biological ones.  

[Caveat: I have not followed CryoNet lately, so I'm jumping 
into this thread mid-stream, and only then because I noticed 
Dr. Soreff's name on a posting.]

I don't think we're going to settle the issue of "what is the 
precise definition of an entity that merits legal protection" 
anytime soon.  Even so, I guess Jeff is right that we should 
still put in a word of defense now and then when someone says 
something particularly disturbing.  Consider this to be a 
me-too post, supporting Jeff's defense of machine life forms.
I agree that we should not, at this early stage of the game, 
make broad statements that such entities are not "persons".  

As technology continues to develop, we're going to get more 
and more of these "where do you draw the line" issues, if only 
because technology will give us more ways to create stuff that 
has no clear historical precedent.  I have a lot to say about 
general approaches to such problems, but for now I'll offer 
what I think is an important take-home thought:

    Relax a little.  Apart from regulatory considerations, 
    the technologies which make it difficult to draw the 
    lines between life and non-life also tend to make it 
    less costly to draw those lines generously -- giving the 
    benefit of the doubt to the borderline entity, without 
    imposing an unbearable burden on any other entities.

In this case:  if we have the technological means to create 
full-blown machine intelligence, we should also have a much 
greater ability to provide all of the entities involved with 
whatever resources they need in order to survive and prosper.  
There's no strong need to start declaring broad categories of 
entities to be "obviously" unfit for human respect and love. 

Obviously, this one principle won't solve every problem.  What 
some entites want is to destroy all other entities, so there's 
no pleasing everyone.  :-)  We still have to fret about safety 
issues, so the delineation problem cannot be avoided outright.  
Humanitarian issues, among others, are also important enough 
to merit wading into the murky multidimensional waters.

Even so, this principle might be a source of reassurance to 
those who get frustrated by the inherent difficulty of the 
general delineation problem.  The forces which tend to make 
precise delineation more difficult will usually also make 
precise delineation less critical, at least in terms of basic 
needs.  We can more easily afford to worry less about parsing 
the definition of "neighbor", and focus more on practicing 
the kind of behavior that makes neighborliness worthwhile.

So please, let's give the bots a break.

--Will

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