Why do we go to war? Why did the Nazi's want to exterminate the Jews? Why did the Europeans want the Indians out? Why did people enslave other people? Exactly the same reason Robots would do it to us. They believe themselves to be superior, or in the case of a robot may actually be.
Also to Darth Ravager, we would have to get to a point where we could transfer without deleting. Is it even possible in computers? I mean if I transfer something to a flash drive it is actually just copying it to my flash drive I have to delete it from the computer. What about with Xbox, you can transfer your profile but not copy it, is this a different process than what I just said or is it the same thing?
Many years ago we believed the earth to be flat, we knew without a doubt that the earth was flat. Today we "know" many things, doesn't make them true. The fact that most of what we know in this area is just theory makes me believe we could be very wrong.
The argument about how AI came about or why we'd go to war with AI etc is irrelevant. The premise is that we
did (regardless of how it started) and now we as humans need to compete with AI machines. So I'll stick to that part of the debate here.
Digital "transfer" is always "copy then delete." Always. The content we're talking about isn't a fluid that can be poured from one vessel in to another and remain whole. What we're talking about doing is creating a model of your brain's patterns and makeup and copying it into a silicon brain that duplicates the original to the point of being indistinguishable to a 3rd party observer. The problem is, what happens to the original?
Think about how you transfer a CD onto your iPod. You put the CD (your brain) into the computer, the computer anolyzes it, and creates a digital copy, which then resides on your iPod. Is the music still on the CD? Yes. It's the same with your Xbox Live profile; your profile doesn't "move" anywhere. The data is recreated in another spot (the flashdrive) and deleted from the source (360).The same would go for a consciousness transfer. Your mind will still exist in your original brain, you would see this copy walking around, thinking it is you, but you would
know that it is the copy and you are the original, because your memories will have begun to diverge as you observe each other.
The only way to stop this divergence is to destroy the original at the moment the copy takes place, just like you can't have duped Live accounts, and the music industry hates CD copying because you get "free" music. The original
you is now dead, and a
copy of you is walking around, possibly in your original body, acting like you. Had they not terminated you, you could have had conversations with your copy, and you could have gone on to become completely different people as your experiences cause you both to further diverge... and you'd probably be pretty pissed if the government or whoever locked you up and left your "better" copy to live
your life.
The issue is discussed in a number of sci-fi novels, and it hinges on what we define as a soul or the essence of our "self" as individuals. Read Altered Carbon, Kiln People or even listen to Dr. McCoy talk about the transporters in Star Trek. Does the transporter move you to the surface of the planet, really really fast? No. It vaporizes you (dead) and creates a copy of you, complete with your memories, on the planet surface. Think about it... the crews in Star Trek have
died in almost every episode. In fact, if one of them was killed on a mission, all they'd have to do is beam a new copy from the ship's memory to the bridge and they'd have a replacement, albeit with a few fewer memories depending on when they last "backed up" the crew member. All they need is the extra raw materials on hand, which the transporter technology uses all the time anyway.
In the event of war with machines, I honestly think this is the more likely solution. The body and brain are already incredibly complex, adaptive and powerful machines just as they are. I don't see any computer today that could regulate every biological process in our bodies while simultaneously supporting a fully self-aware consciousness. We come with that equipment standard, and have for thousands of years. We don't know how far we can genetically engineer ourselves for improved performance, but we do know that other animals can already do things we'd want to do. They are frequently stronger, can run faster and longer, jump further, hold their breath for hours at a time, hibernate through winters, etc. We've even learned that some animals don't experience physical decay over the course of their lives the way we do, or are immune to most disease or even radiation and pollution. Some even get nourishment from the sun via symbiosis with photosynthetic algae in their skin.
In the end we have an advantage in being adaptive. The machines on the other hand, are just really good at math and trial by error.
» Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:20 pm 
