06-12-2023, 11:12 PM
I tend to agree with Steve on this. I've read some of Hanson's stuff in this area before and he takes the flawed (IMHO) approach used by a lot of alternate history or time travel changes history SF - one element is changed but everything else stays largely the same but maybe more so or less so. More specifically, having ems come into existence but the only impact is suddenly a very large increase in 'cheap labor' with resulting economic impacts.
In practice, the technology to do such a thing would seem very likely to have a huge range of impacts due to the fact that if you can emulate something as complex and capable as a human mind, you can presumably emulate or create much less complex processing systems that would still be much more capable than anything we have now - and the ripple effects of that tech would spread everywhere. This is before we get to the level of the moral/ethical/philosophical fights that would develop around the whole idea of copying people for the purposes of enslaving them.
This is not to argue that such a society could never exist - but to come into existence I would argue that a whole host of social and political and technological changes and shifts would have to happen such that the result world would not be so 'single issue' as what Hanson describes. I understand why Hanson describes things the way he does - the focus is on the idea he's talking about, not all possible side effects and such (that's the kind of thing OA is for
) but it still detracts from the argument a bit for me, at least if I look to the general case.
My 2c worth,
Todd
In practice, the technology to do such a thing would seem very likely to have a huge range of impacts due to the fact that if you can emulate something as complex and capable as a human mind, you can presumably emulate or create much less complex processing systems that would still be much more capable than anything we have now - and the ripple effects of that tech would spread everywhere. This is before we get to the level of the moral/ethical/philosophical fights that would develop around the whole idea of copying people for the purposes of enslaving them.
This is not to argue that such a society could never exist - but to come into existence I would argue that a whole host of social and political and technological changes and shifts would have to happen such that the result world would not be so 'single issue' as what Hanson describes. I understand why Hanson describes things the way he does - the focus is on the idea he's talking about, not all possible side effects and such (that's the kind of thing OA is for
) but it still detracts from the argument a bit for me, at least if I look to the general case.My 2c worth,
Todd
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