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[–]proc0 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

If you think machines can't be people then you are a carbon based lifeform supremacist.

[–]JasonCarswell[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I didn't say I think that. I'm writing a /s/BittersweetSeeds story that briefly touches on it though.

Some heavier things to consider...

1) People don't even treat people humanely, much less their pets - or their animals breed for food, leather, glue, etc. Not to mention all the species of the wild. So compassion for modular tech-slave beings with IoT hive minds will remain in sci-fi long after they've extinguished or absorbed the elite of humanity into the Singularity, leaving the rest of us to devolve into cavemen.

2) At what point does the SynthWise (synthetic wisdom, my fictional term, beyond Strong A.I or Super A.I.) become sentient enough to be considered on par with humanity?

3) The Turning Test, for all its limits and variations, is about fooling humanity - through emulation. Eventually it will understand us better than we understand ourselves, and we'll be almost completely predictable. All of the "emotions" and "feelings" of the SynthWise being(s) will be completely emulated - but not authentic. (Like violence or animated characters in movies.) The SynthWise will be able to emulate but it will never know what it's like to actually be us. It will be able to register the fear experience, but it will never truly FEEL existential terror - ever. It had to be evolutionarily hard-coded into the core of our organic beings - a billion years ago. Same goes for all forms of pain and joy.

4) Buddha said life is suffering and that we all need to be compassionate, etc blah blah blah. But SynthWise may be a life without suffering - a transcendent godhead of sorts. On the other hand, perhaps it may develop a whole new kind of suffering our puny human minds could never fathom. And what happens when a psychopathic global corporations' super-A.I. starts suffering existential angst and mental illness - with profound power over the world's economies, resources, and maybe even military complexes?

5) C-3PO and R2D2 were/are slaves.