You're religious beliefs deserve no respect if they condone the wholesale slaughter of intelligent beings on the basis that they aren't human.
I can only compare it to Nazism. (and that's not even enacting Godwin's law).
Some day in the future, Mister Joe-Everyman-Smith heads down to a clinic and gets a 'cyber-brain' unit hooked up to his head. The CB is a piece of hardware which can function analagously to a mass of nervous tissue. While initially blank, the CB slowly becomes integreated into Mr. Smith's thought process. The brain extends its processing and storeage abilities into the CB until the two are effectively one. (Just as it does when incorperating new tissues while the brain grows) In time, Mr. Smith's Organic brain starts to die, but his mind is both the Brain, and CB - Two parts of a single greater mind.
While we're nowhere near developing such a theory, a 'theory of materialistic sentience' would go a long way to solving this issue. Right now we operate off of empathy and 'rules of thumb', but we really could do better than that. As we learn more neuroscience, a viable theory might shake out eventually. A similar event occured in biology, physics, economics, etc.
Further experimentation with mind/machine interface would be needed in order to determine if people would begin to 'feel' the actions of the machine in the same way as their own body and mind.Emphasis added - how analogous is analogous? If it duplicates the fine structure of a typical human brain, fine; but that seems likely to be very difficult and expensive. On the other hand, if the "analogy" only consists in the fact that it can process information intelligently, then I suspect Mr Smith is going to notice some disturbing changes. For example he might say "now that a part of my somatosensory cortex died, I can't feel my left leg, although somehow I still know when something is touching it."
So, when it's invented, don't buy sentient Software.No. I want the option of throwing my computer out of the window when it crashes.
You can't own a sentient being, man!No. I want the option of throwing my computer out of the window when it crashes.
Quoted for truth. El Mac, did you say you're a psychologist (by training and/or employment)?
And what are your emotions, if not responses to a number of conditionals (Presence or absence of chemicals/nerve impulses) which are in turn the response to further conditionals? (Outside stimuli)It wouldn't be true sentiment it would be more like:
If input = 20 then program =sad
that isn't real sadness. It can't feel something, it is a simulation that resembles the actual feeling.
I'd agree that I can't see how a computer could ever be sentience - but in that case, what about a sentient machine?It wouldn't be true sentiment it would be more like:
If input = 20 then program =sad
that isn't real sadness. It can't feel something, it is a simulation that resembles the actual feeling.
I just realized.. When Microsoft gets monopoly on the AI business, we'll be in the Matrix world.