0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
What happens if aliens turn up and apply our moral standards to us with the roles reversed? If we complain about their insistence that they matter and that we don't, they'll just tell us that we're primitive animals because we were stupid enough to consider ourselves to be superior to them, whereas if we hadn't made that mistake, they'd have recognised us as their equals. Getting morality wrong is to sign your own death warrant.
But still, most people will argue that if a stranger human being and any other life forms are on each side of trolley problem's track, they will choose to save the human. Choosing otherwise will make them branded as immoral.
What makes humans special is other humans. From the point of view of every other species (except dogs) we are either food, competition for food, or predators. Nothing special. Even dogs have an equivocal attitude: one or two familiar dogs may help you hunt or protect you, but "dog eats baby" is an everyday headline and a hungry pack will happily kill an adult.Forming packs is nothing unusual. Termites and bees have a hugely structured society that plans ahead. Ants even farm other animals. Warfare between packs is usually rational (wolves defend their hunting territory against other packs) and occasionally irrational (marauding bands of male chimpanzees attack other families for no apparent reason) but only humans kill each other at long range because they think that their chosen enemy worships a different god - or none at all.The extent to which humans will exert themselves to make poisons like tobacco or methamphetamine, to climb ice-covered rocks, or to jump out of aeroplanes, is unparalleled. The best definition of intelligence is "constructive laziness", and it's a surprisingly rare commodity, whereas its opposite is abundant and even revered as "art" or "philosophy".
The default is to give strangers the benefit of the doubt and, like every other animal, to give preference to our own species in the absence of any other information. But given the choice between Donald Trump and a chicken, I'd save the chicken every time.
As I mentioned above, currently, humans are our only hope to prevent catastrophic events from eliminating conscious beings.
. Currently, humans are the most advanced level of consciousness biological beings.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 16/01/2019 04:30:00As I mentioned above, currently, humans are our only hope to prevent catastrophic events from eliminating conscious beings.Far from it. If you believe in consensus, then humans are responsible for catastrophic climate change that will be as disastrous as the extinction of the dinosaurs.If you believe in science, it is clear that the absence of humans from the Chernobyl exclusion zone has allowed every native species of mammal from mice to wolves, to flourish in a garden of robust plants.If you believe in history, you will have noted the disastrous effect of arable farming in the American dustbowl, deforestation of Easter Island, and gradual loss of freshwater habitat in Bangladesh, all due to the unlimited presence of a relatively new species (hom sap) with no significant predators.The solution to the preservation of life on earth is fewer humans.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 16/01/2019 03:32:31. Currently, humans are the most advanced level of consciousness biological beings. Please define consciousness.If humans represent the highest level of it, then consciousness appears to be defined by a tendency to self-harm, genocide, irrational belief, or the deliberate destruction of food to support market prices.
You cut both wires at the same time and discover that the rules stated as certainties are actually impossible.
Here is some examples to demonstrate that moral judgment is closely related to knowledge and uncertainty.You are in a tall and large building, and find a massive time bomb which makes it impossible to move before disarming it first. You can see red and blue wires on the detonator, and a counting down clock showing that there is only 2 minutes left before it explodes. You are an expert in explosives, sou you know for certain the following premises:- if you cut the red wire, the bomb will be disarmed.- If you cut the blue wire, the bomb will explode immediately, destroying the entire building and killing thousands inside.- If you do nothing about the bomb, the timer will eventually trigger the bomb.Which is the most moral decision you can take, which is the least moral, and why?
Why not try and find the wires powering the timer if that was put out of action a more detailed examination could be made.There are two possibilities the timer is supplying a signal to the detonator that stops it detonating or when the time runs out sends a signal to the detonator to make it explode if you stop the timer you can check which it is.there is a worrying possibility wires powering the counter also power the don't detonate signal generator so try and find an alternative way to stop the counter !If the timer is mechanical you could try zapping it with a CO2 fire extinguisher if one is handy , best of luck.If I was building this device I would incorporate a small battery in the detonator box and make the signal from the timer "don't explode" and use the other wire to prime the device.You would only have to provide a don't explode signal from the timer and cut the signal from the timer.I am assuming only DC signals are used if one used AC signals and frequency sensitive detectors it would be a whole new ball game
If this topic is about universal morals, then the bomb question has not nearly enough information. Why mess with a device that has a clear purpose? It has not been stated that there is a goal to preserve the building. Maybe the bomb was put there by a demolition crew who was paid to take it down.Suppose the building is full of puppies. It is a universal law that it is bad to damage something cute, correct? If so, you've already begged your answer. If not, how am I to know what to do with the bomb even if it has a simple 'off' switch available? The universe seems to provide no input for the situation at hand.
However, let's assume the higher floors of the building are full of people who can't possibly get out in two minutes (or even be warned within two minutes), that the bomb is on the ground floor, and the the building will collapse as soon as it blows. There is nothing immoral about not risking your own death in order to have a 50:50 chance of saving lots of other people, so you are entitled to run out of there and let it blow. If AGI is making the decision though, it could lock you in with the bomb so that you don't have a choice - that would be its moral decision. You would then cut one of the wires, randomly selected.There are some other factors though. If the person who has to run or cut a wire is more valuable to humanity than the sum total worth of all the other people in the building, AGI will not lock him/her in the room, but will order him/her to get out of there and let the building blow. If the building is full of Nazis who are attending a conference, that could well happen.