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A comment on John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence. Parent comment

Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by air7 on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @08:58PM (#21532065)
This reminds me of a interesting armchair moral dilemma: Assume we have the tech to replicate/simulate a biological brain. Now say we want to study the effects of extreme pain/torture etc on the brain. Instead of studying living animals or humans we'd just simulate a brain, and simulate sending it pain signals and see what happens.

But, if this is a 100% replicated brain, doesn't that mean its suffering is just as real as a real brain's suffering, and therefor just as cruel? And if not, what's the difference?

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by balfirevic on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @09:37PM (#21532293)
> But, if this is a 100% replicated brain, doesn't that mean its suffering is just as real as a real brain's suffering, and therefor just as cruel?

Yes, it does.

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by ars on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @10:47PM (#21532588)
Or, assuming you don't believe in souls, "real" brain's suffering isn't real either. (The brain is just a machine, right?)

This reminds me of the idea that free will doesn't exist, but that we have to act as if it were.

So by analogy to that, maybe the AI isn't really suffering, but you have to act as if it were.

More food for thought:

Some surgery blocks memory but can be incredibly painful. Do we need to worry about that? Is the suffering that the brain can not remember "real"?

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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by mercer on Sunday November 17, 2019 @03:20PM (#21559839)
I think the word 'real' is way too vague in this context.
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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by lonelappde on Wednesday November 13, 2019 @09:28PM (#21532249)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_artificial_intelli...
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Re:John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general int... by rfhjt on Thursday November 14, 2019 @01:42AM (#21533304)
Fwiw, after a certain amount of pain, brain "transcends it": everything disappears, there are some curious colors here and there, but there is no pain. Experienced that during an in ear infection.
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