Re:Go-attention: A full attention mechanism and transformer ...
by ben_w on Wednesday March 05, 2025 @05:36AM
(#43265027)
> On which moral grounds would you object to a Star-Trek level replicator for physical good? (please make them good, as offering any food anyone may want would fix world hunger once and for all)
Unfortunately this is one topic in which my philosophy qualification comes in handy — "moral grounds" are so varied by people, that it's almost useless as an argument.
Consider the following list of examples, I expect most people in the world will object to at least one of these arguments, but which one(s) they object to will vary wildly:
1. Kantian Ethics: Replicators risk devaluing human labor by reducing work to a mere means, thereby undermining the inherent dignity derived from effort.
2. Aristotelian Virtue Ethics: By eliminating the need for craftsmanship and effort, replicators could impair the cultivation of virtues essential for personal and communal flourishing.
3. Marxist Ethics: The obsolescence of traditional labor due to replicators may intensify alienation and disrupt social structures central to class solidarity.
4. Existentialism: Removing material struggle through replicators might strip life of the challenges necessary for authentic self-creation and personal meaning.
5. Confucian Ethics: Such technology could erode the social harmony built on mutual effort and well-defined communal roles, destabilizing moral and familial bonds.
6. Environmental Ethics: Unlimited production enabled by replicators may encourage overconsumption and waste, endangering ecological balance and sustainable resource management.
7. Amish Ethics: Replicators could undermine the values of simplicity, humility, and communal labor by promoting dependence on technology instead of human effort and cooperation.
8. Consequentialism: While replicators, as defined by your question, can solve world hunger, they're also demonstrably able to build weapons (as can current 3d printers), and can function as Von Neumann self-replicating machines. A literal minefield made of these appeared in DS9, and giving such tech to the world almost unavoidably means also giving such tech to every psychopath. Also grey-goo/paperclip scenarios become plausible.
> Then why object to that for virtual goods?
You can't eat virtual cheese, and unlike The Matrix if you die in a video game you don't die in real life, so the arguments for/against AI don't even need to be the same as those for/against Trek-replicators.
Unfortunately this is one topic in which my philosophy qualification comes in handy — "moral grounds" are so varied by people, that it's almost useless as an argument.
Consider the following list of examples, I expect most people in the world will object to at least one of these arguments, but which one(s) they object to will vary wildly:
1. Kantian Ethics: Replicators risk devaluing human labor by reducing work to a mere means, thereby undermining the inherent dignity derived from effort.
2. Aristotelian Virtue Ethics: By eliminating the need for craftsmanship and effort, replicators could impair the cultivation of virtues essential for personal and communal flourishing.
3. Marxist Ethics: The obsolescence of traditional labor due to replicators may intensify alienation and disrupt social structures central to class solidarity.
4. Existentialism: Removing material struggle through replicators might strip life of the challenges necessary for authentic self-creation and personal meaning.
5. Confucian Ethics: Such technology could erode the social harmony built on mutual effort and well-defined communal roles, destabilizing moral and familial bonds.
6. Environmental Ethics: Unlimited production enabled by replicators may encourage overconsumption and waste, endangering ecological balance and sustainable resource management.
7. Amish Ethics: Replicators could undermine the values of simplicity, humility, and communal labor by promoting dependence on technology instead of human effort and cooperation.
8. Consequentialism: While replicators, as defined by your question, can solve world hunger, they're also demonstrably able to build weapons (as can current 3d printers), and can function as Von Neumann self-replicating machines. A literal minefield made of these appeared in DS9, and giving such tech to the world almost unavoidably means also giving such tech to every psychopath. Also grey-goo/paperclip scenarios become plausible.
> Then why object to that for virtual goods?
You can't eat virtual cheese, and unlike The Matrix if you die in a video game you don't die in real life, so the arguments for/against AI don't even need to be the same as those for/against Trek-replicators.