Kevin's Watch

www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/08/20/art ... index.html

His idea is that once the container is made, if scientists add nucleotides in the right proportions, then Darwinian evolution could simply take over.

"We aren't smart enough to design things, we just let evolution do the hard work and then we figure out what happened," Szostak said.

It's interesting that artificial life and artificial intelligence are expected to be developed in similar time frames, yet they are independent projects. They are approached with entirely different methods--chemical reactions vs logical, computational connections.

And yet there is obvious interplay between these two fundamentally distinct levels of organization. There is information "controlling" the chemical reactions (encoded in DNA), and there are necessary electrical underpinnings to the computations of Turing machines.

The fact that these are so deeply intertwined, and yet can be engineered in totally different existential levels, makes it plain that we are engineering our way toward a technological solution of the mind body problem. We're almost there. Creating physical and mental life (though I think AI is a lot farther off than we realize). Now if we can build conscious, sentient beings from biological organisms we create ourselves, does this finally put creationism to rest? Or does it mean that we've simply discovered God's secret formula? If we build these sentient biological organisms in the manner described above (using evolution), what does it mean that God's secret formula involves the very thing that contradicts creationism?

I dislike the phrase 'artifical' life. 'Man Made' life would be better, but would get the feminists in a row.

EL, this research certainly does challenge the "unnatural" connotation which "artificial" possesses. If we use natural selection to build these creatures, it seems they must be natural. Yet we can't quite say we "grow" these organisms, because we create the "seed." We design the genetic material. So they're still not completely natural in their design--in the sense of the selection process of the various DNA arrangements. I think "artificial" still applies, both in terms of an "artifact" and in terms of something nature didn't build itself (though granted, nature did build us with the intelligence to do this; and everything which exists is in the broadest sense of the word, "natural").

Somehow I can see this giving us the clue to the mystery of life. God is a hard thing to remove because he can go one better and as you said, people will just say that we found out how God made us. Though, this will give us clues on how life came about, I doubt that it will give us a physical bases for conscious. That is just my opinion.

The physical basis for consciousness is indeed the issue--for me. (See my posts on the AI thread; I plan to update that one soon).

We obviously don't understand how consciousness arises out of matter. But there are some theories which tap into quantum mechanics . . . again, I'll post my latest on that issue in the AI thread.

But if we can master the physical basis of consciousness--assuming there is one, and mind isn't a separate entity--then there is no role left for god besides picking the natural laws and getting the ball rolling (or the Bang banging).

Why does Dr. Malcom's chaos theory enter my mind when I read things like this? *shudders*

But if we can master the physical basis of consciousness--assuming there is one, and mind isn't a separate entity--then there is no role left for god besides picking the natural laws and getting the ball rolling (or the Bang banging).

Thta won't happen for along time. Just because consciousness maybe physical, doesn't mean there can't be afterlife... through quantum mechanics and other theories.

Malik23 wrote:It's interesting that artificial life and artificial intelligence are expected to be developed in similar time frames, yet they are independent projects.

That's because those time frames are conjecture. Each project has an element (life and intelligence) whose very definition is still endlessly debated. And by any definition, we don't know how to achieve it. I'm not saying it can't be achieved, or that we won't achieve it. I'm just saying they pulled a number out of the air.

Queeaqueg wrote:

But if we can master the physical basis of consciousness--assuming there is one, and mind isn't a separate entity--then there is no role left for god besides picking the natural laws and getting the ball rolling (or the Bang banging).

Thta won't happen for along time. Just because consciousness maybe physical, doesn't mean there can't be afterlife... through quantum mechanics and other theories.

Sure, there might be an afterlife based on physical laws. By that I mean we may be able to find technological solutions to death (including resurrection). But I see absolutely no reason look for a theory which could support the idea that there is an afterlife now. We look for theories to explain real phenomena, not to explain things which we've invented for our own comfort. There's no evidence that an afterlife even exists. So why try to explain it?

Some might say that through looking at Near-Death stuff and Reincarnation stories... we have something to go on(otherwise we wouldn't have these Institutes around them). I think the afterlife is a purely natural process.
Back the life thing, if I were a Christian I would say that the life created has gained a Soul rather then he made the Awareness... see where I am coming from. By doing this, we would not come close to all the answers.

Queeaqueg wrote:Some might say that through looking at Near-Death stuff and Reincarnation stories... we have something to go on(otherwise we wouldn't have these Institutes around them). I think the afterlife is a purely natural process.
Back the life thing, if I were a Christian I would say that the life created has gained a Soul rather then he made the Awareness... see where I am coming from. By doing this, we would not come close to all the answers.

You could just go with what the catholics say about worms. The soul was there all along.

We're certainly building ourselves a slew of ethical questions for the future, aren't we? Will "created" life have the same rights as "natural" life?

--A

Avatar wrote:We're certainly building ourselves a slew of ethical questions for the future, aren't we? Will "created" life have the same rights as "natural" life?

--A

If it has a human mind, or a mind that thinks as well as a human mind, but differently, then I consider it deserving of 'human' rights.

and if it's not a human mind but still a mind nonetheless? A consciousness in other words...

--A

Avatar wrote:and if it's not a human mind but still a mind nonetheless? A consciousness in other words...

--A

A colony of ants is a mind. I'm not going to stop putting ant killer on my lawn. A makak has a mind. I'm not going to stop animal research.

I draw the line a humans. Unless the mind in question is capable of destroying me. Then, might makes right.

It's likely that Avatar is speaking of the kind of mind that is capable of the same level or thoughts and awareness as we are. They were arguing the rights of the engineered people on Dark Angel, and one woman said, "It's not a quesiton of their having human rights. They're not human." Another planet's inhabitants who built ships and came here wouldn't be human either. And if we create AI, it won't be human.

But should any of these "beings" have the rights we give (or, rather, the rights I wish we always gave) humans? If the mind is capable of the things our mind is capable of, regardless of the mechanisms involved (bio-electric, chemical, circuitry, the silicon-based life of Trek's Horta, or whatever), then my answer is Yes.

And if we are not sure if the being is capable of the same things our mind is capable of, then let's err on the side of being decent beings ourselves, and give them rights until we are sure they are not aware and intelligent. The default position should be giving more rights than something might "deserve." That default position makes us better beings.

Human rights to artificial intelligences? Even if we don't know for sure they're intelligent (much less conscious)? Wow. I certainly wouldn't go so far for a machine I plug into my wall socket.

What's next? Should they be covered in John Edwards' universal healthcare plan? Should they get free IT support from the government?

Should they vote? Should they be granted trial of their peers? What if they are the only one and don't have any peers? Could humans ever judge them? Would you say humans are the peers of artificial intelligences? Absolutely, not! That's certainly bending the definition of "peer." What right would we have to judge a superior intelligence? Would be give those intelligences the right to judge us? Could they become judges or even president? Surely their "rights" would extend to taking part in the government.

Can we put them in jail if they commit crimes, or do we put their programmers in jail? As created beings, aren't the creators ultimately responsible? Let's say that someone builds an "evil" machine, and launches it upon society. If we're going to give these machines the benefit of the doubt, as Fist and Faith suggests, and assume they have rights when we don't even know if they're conscious, then how can we distinguish between a super-advanced computer virus running on a robot which emulates consciousness sufficiently to enable it to have rights under this extremely generous criteria? Couldn't the virus creator basically get away with murder? Because if an entity has rights, then it must be held responsible for its own behavior. A person could commit murder by creating a robot good enough to fool us, in other words, and its programmer would evade conviction while his machine rots in jail.

Clearly, we are not yet ready to make these kinds of decisions. We've barely scratched the surface of what is reasonable.

Ready or not, if we do create AI, we must make these kinds of decisions. So, until we know with absolute certainty (and let's not kid ourselves - there are some people who will never accept that any AI actually is intelligent and aware), do we err on the side of giving rights, or denying them?

Really, it's not a problem. If we're giving rights to non-intelligent things, we'll figure it out, and stop. And we'll be embarassed. Boo hoo.

But if we don't grant them rights - if we unplug them whenever they disagree with us; or keep them confined to a laptop with no connection to any sort of network - and then we learn they are intelligent, then we'll have been committing murder and locking someone in a closet. Abusing an intelligence. We should not create them just so we can use or abuse them as we want on a whim.

So I'd change it from "human rights" to "intelligent rights." We've just never had to call them anything other than "human rights" before, because we haven't yet found anything else that might possibly be intelligent.

Yeah, I'm with Fist. I think those scenarios that Malik brings up, voting, crimes, participation, are all questions which will become relevant if we ever succeed in creating independant intelligence. And we will be forced to make those decisions. I hope that as a species, humanity makes the right ones.

(And know that at least some will not. There will be countries where artifical life will be on the order of property, and others where it will be free. I know which I think is better.)

--A

I really can't believe what I'm hearing. You'd actually let them vote? What stops their creator from making all his robots Republican? Sure, they could be conscious and have free will, but there's nothing from stopping him from programming them to have certain hard-wired tendencies. After all, we humans have certain hardwired tendencies, too. If the robot is conscious, then his voting rights derive from this fact, and being hardwired as a Republican would in no way violate its status as a sentient being (though you might think it violates its status as an intelligent being--depending on your own political orientation ).


So Fist--just curious--what's your position on abortion? Are you willing to give a computer more benefit of doubt than an unborn human? Shouldn't we also err on the side of caution with regards to this living organism?