Why should you be emotionally invested in strong AI?

[Rairun]

It's just that some of you guys seem to hold the exact same notion of the self as people who believe in the existence of souls. They say, "I am my soul." You say, "I am my brain processes." But you still leave the original definition of "I" completely unchallenged.

The only reason why your brain processes are you is that they compose a self-referential system. That's it. There's nothing special about those physical processes other than that. They are not "you", whatever that means, in any other way. I don't know how else to put this. It's like you've accepted the "you're not immortal" part of there being no soul, but you still believe there is something, no matter how transient, that makes you you. Well, there isn't.

[Belz...]

Who wouldn't be threatened by the notion of a giant robot on a shooting spree?

I feel threatened by the notion of PEOPLE on a shooting spree. And we have those, anyway.

Why do people always assume machines will try to wipe us out ? This isn't the Matrix, you know.

[Belz...]

I've been following this thread for 6 pages now, trying to wrap my head around Rocket Dodger is saying. If I understand correctly, his argument is that our sense of self is tied to the software in the brain, therefore if we copy that software to other mediums, our sense of self lives on. (correct me if I am wrong).

My thoughts however tend to be that our identity is tied to the hardware. Oh sure, we can change out peripherals, we can swap monitors, we can even have our harddrive erased (as in the case of amnesia). However, once that CPU goes, we truly cease to exist. I suppose if we could figure out how to keep the cpu going indefinately we might be able to live on, I just dont agree that putting my memories and thoughts on another machine turns *me* from a pc to a mac.

I don't think there'd be a continuation of "self" in the copy, however that copy would be made. Why ? Well, as I've said before on another thread, if the copy exists at the same time as the original, the "self" isn't shared, and I don't think anyone here would claim that. Well, then. If the original ceases to exist when the copy is made (via a teleporter, for instance), why would the opposite be true, suddenly ?

[Soapy Sam]

Who is going to explain all this to the IRS?
Oh- and if A is copied to produce A and B, which one gets the wife?

Am I emotionally opposed to the notion that human minds can be copied? Yes.

Anyone sane who ever read Richard Morgan really should be. People like Takeshi Kovacs I can do without.