Re:Ask HN: Are we morally obligated to give freedom to AGI?
by AnimalMuppet on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @04:28PM
(#34699963)
So the question becomes how you categorize an AGI. You put it in the "inanimate" category. And it belongs there - it can't move. (Unless it inhabits a robot body...)
I put it in the "can think" category, which puts it on a par with humans. (I think that "can think" is a far more exclusive category than "can move", and therefore membership in the more exclusive club is more determinative.)
I think there's good reason to believe that's the case (see emotivism), but barring that most discussion of morals tends to assume that the suffering of sentient beings is "bad" and the thriving of sentient beings is "good." For example, few would recommend that I be punished for plant abuse if I maliciously sliced up the zz plant in my living room. If I poisoned a river, generally I wouldn't have thought to have ethically wronged the river, but rather the beings that depend on that river.
If you hold the position that inanimate objects can be morally wronged, then I follow why you believe AGI could be. I just don't see any good reason to adopt that view.