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6 votes
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The illogic of logical positivism
4 votes -
How to know what you really want | From career choices to new purchases, use René Girard’s mimetic theory to resist the herd and forge your own path in life
11 votes -
The hubris of big data
4 votes -
Twitter, the intimacy machine
7 votes -
Violence and protest
6 votes -
Machine learning for moral judgments
3 votes -
Maybe a killer AI isn't that bad
A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with friends about the singularity and transhumanism, and I thought it was very interesting to consider the philosophical value in preserving whatever...
A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with friends about the singularity and transhumanism, and I thought it was very interesting to consider the philosophical value in preserving whatever we consider to be humanity. That got me to thinking about non-anthropocentric views of the subject. I think that the one weakness to transhumanist ideas is that they put too much value on the perceived value of their humanity, regardless of what they define that term to mean. Does the existence of "humanity" make the universe any better in any measurable way?
Fast forward to now and I have come across a random group of people talking about Nier Automata. The game has a lot of thoughts about humanity and the value of life, and the fact that all the characters are robots and AI really help to give you a different perspective of everything. And during this time I'm thinking about people like Yudkowski and Musk who are terrified of AI becoming sentient and deciding that humans all deserve to die. And I think to myself, "wait a moment, is it really that bad?"
While of course I would hate to see humankind exterminated, there's actually merit to being succeeded by an intelligence of our own creation. For one thing, the combination of intelligence and sentience might in itself be considered to be a definition of humanity. And inasmuch it fulfills the desires that motivate transhumanism; the AI would last much longer than humanity could, could live in places that humans cant, and can live in ways that are much more sustainable than human bodies. This AI is also our successor; It would be the living legacy for us as a species. It would even have a better chance of coming into contact with intelligences other than our own.
Well, these are just thoughts that I thought were worth sharing.
14 votes -
Against the Stoics, Skeptics, Epicureans, and Buddhists
6 votes -
Critical race theory and moral panic
13 votes -
What is sport?
4 votes -
Repeatedly clicking the first link on Wikipedia ends up at "Philosophy" 97% of the time
27 votes -
The American Aristotle
2 votes -
In Nyaya philosophy only some debates are worth having
8 votes -
Introduction to the Upanishads - The Essence of Vedic Philosophy
5 votes -
Do chairs exist?
2 votes -
Food, beauty, mind
6 votes -
The Fruitful Death of (Some) Modal Collapse Arguments | with Joe Schmid
2 votes -
He taught a Ta-Nehisi Coates essay. Then he was fired.
12 votes -
About meanings that make absolutely no sense
7 votes -
Wolin, on his coined 'inverted totalitarianism' and the motivations of citizens under it
3 votes -
Developing ethical, social, and cognitive competence
3 votes -
Physicists face stagnation if they continue to treat the philosophy of science as a joke
10 votes -
It’s a good thing I don’t care what you think -- How reception shapes philosophy articles
3 votes -
Envy
15 votes -
Don’t farm bugs
11 votes -
How Foucault was shielded from scandal by French reverence for intellectuals
6 votes -
How hard is it to get counting right?
3 votes -
Blade Runner and personal identity
7 votes -
Why relativism is the worst idea ever
6 votes -
One Tenth of a Second
5 votes -
The problem with consequentialism
5 votes -
Anger management
8 votes -
Ethical behaviourism and the moral risks of human-robot relationships
4 votes -
Our need to get drunk in company may be innate
4 votes -
The power of concepts under authoritarianism: The life of Arendt’s banality of evil in Turkey
6 votes -
Jean-Paul Sartre: Exalting Black thought and living existentialism
2 votes -
Philosophy has made plenty of progress
5 votes -
Social constructs: An introduction
13 votes -
Shaping the artificial intelligence revolution in philosophy
2 votes -
Are plants animals like any other?
5 votes -
How much should we trust technology?
7 votes -
The ‘great danger’ of technology according to Martin Heidegger
3 votes -
An essay on nothing
4 votes -
The Selfish Fallacy
11 votes -
Scientists and economists sold Karl Popper’s ‘falsification’ idea to the world. They have much to answer for
7 votes -
The private language argument
3 votes -
Can you be a good billionaire?
15 votes -
Arguing: Good and bad faith
4 votes -
What pro wrestling can teach us about the quest for truth
3 votes