eRe4s3r wrote on Jun 19, 2015, 04:01:
I... honestly wouldn't even know how to react to an AI that tells me it likes me, that is afraid of something or even of me... or that says that it doesn't want to be switched off. Could you explain to an AI that it's not alive? Would it not be alive if it could reasonably argue why it is afraid? For those people having these Aibo robots they sure as hell feel alive enough. And I think for them the death of that machine is the loss of a family member.
You are right, it would become a major philosophical and also ethical issue. This is also one of the few things Deus EX never actually explored, but Ghost in the Shell did/and does.
It's one of the few things about the technology development that I am not extremely hyped for. I want proper AGI, house companion robots that clean stuff, manage household, go shopping... it would improve life immensely. But the ethical issues that'd arise from this...
Ex Machina comes to mind.
It's a scary image... it reflects in so many movies, the basic idea... AI (Spielberg) and Bicentennial Man are nice approaches. The idea of being an AI that is thrown away (AI), discarded... He was not a full, human-like AI, in many cases you noticed his restrictions, I think that was done so very well... but he was human enough that people felt with him. Bicentennial Man, the urge to "be", to become human, to advance and change. I think both movies are wonderful examples...
And where it gets really scary is when you travel back a bit. Simulacron-3 (or it's remake, which was by far not as good, 13th Floor). The basic idea that you find out, as you are developing an AI, that this is all you are as well... that you are an AI, nothing but a program, working in your own confines.
That everything around you is scripted, that you just follow, that you consider yourself alive, but are you?
Let's turn that whole idea of "... or that says that it doesn't want to be switched off." around. What if you find out you are just an AI, running inside a simulation, and one day that is brought up to you... the fact that it's time to just turn you off? No god, no afterlife, no heaven, no virgins, no matter what you believe in... it's not there. You'll cease to exist, the space you occupied recycled, used for the next simulation, or something completely different...
It's one of those things that scare me, and make me want to enjoy every minute I have in life. Because it doesn't matter what you believe in... the 'end' is always scary... just some are more scary than others.