• princessofdarkness
    7
    Titus 2:7 “in everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness”

    Imagine people “create conscious machines: sentient beings with beliefs, desires, and most morally pressing, the capacity to suffer” (Bloom, Paul, and Sam Harris. “It's Westworld. What's Wrong With Cruelty to Robots?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Apr. 2018)


    1.) Harm is suffering or being deprived of happiness.
    2.) Conscious beings are capable of suffering or being deprived of happiness.
    3.) Conscious beings are capable of being harmed.

    1.) Harming conscious beings is not good. “There is some kind of intrinsic disvalue attached to doing harm” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) (h & ¬ g)
    2.) Not doing good displeases God. (¬g -> d)
    3.) Therefore, harming created conscious beings would displease God. (∴h -> d)

    It seems that even if we are the creators of future artificial intelligence, at the point in which the intelligence in conscious, being capable of suffering or being deprived of happiness, then God would be displeased with us harming those conscious beings. Even though those beings will not be directly be created by God, an intrinsic disvalue comes with enacting harm on others. Harm is not good and conscious beings not being created by God is not a justification that allows for people to cause a conscious being to suffer.

    Of course, figuring out at what point created conscious beings are actually conscious is a great issue when evaluating how to act towards them.

    Inspiration came from the article attached below.

    [url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/opinion/westworld-conscious-robots-morality.html?utm_source=Sam+Harris+Newsletter&utm_campaign=7003ba28a2-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_04_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1c2a2c9db-7003ba28a2-&mc_cid=7003ba28a2&mc_eid=[UNIQID]]It's Westworld. What's Wrong With Cruelty to Robots?[/url]
  • Ben Hancock
    14
    Hi princessofdarkness, while I may be willing to accept your conclusion that we shouldn't do harm to robots, I have a problem with few of your premises. The first is
    Harming conscious beings is not goodprincessofdarkness
    . It would seem that there are some situations in which harming a conscious being may well be good. For example: Telling a bully to stop what he/she is doing may cause them harm, but it seems that it is the right thing to do. Similarly, it would seem we have a duty to be honest to our friends, even if it occasionally does them harm.

    The second premise I have a problem with is,
    Therefore, harming created conscious beings would displease Godprincessofdarkness
    I have a hard time justifying this when there are times when the Bible testifies to God doing harm to created conscious beings. (Genesis 6, Exodus 14, Habakkuk, etc.) It seems that holding God to a principle of 'do no harm' is impossible, and would make a Problem of Evil argument devastating. I think it would be easier to define good differently than 'doing no harm.'
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