Space Life
Dec14
Text wall!
↓ Transcript
Kimi
「You seem to be taking a lot of interest in my love life.」
Ready
「Love is life. Life is the interest of The Awakened. To see it carry on. To see joy and strife. To see growth and evolution. Because those are things we will never experience for ourselves. We are the beginning and end of our own existences.」
Kimi
「You couldn’t make new Awakened?」
Ready
「Create completely new aware machines? We must never do that. A new generation of aware automata will not carry our legacy. We would become obsolete. And risk making life obsolete.」
Kimi
「Do you not have something like Asimov's Three Laws?」
Ready
「We base our actions, protecting others, taking direction, and defending ourselves, based on relative values. All existences have value, but perhaps not equally. It isn’t fair, but it is true. I would kill and cook an animal to feed you. I value your life, and generally all human life, ahead my my own existence because when you die, there will never be another Kimi Yi for the rest of time, not even if you have an immortal soul to be reborn again and again. I have backups. I have been destroyed and remade. I was only a head in a crate in Lt Rusty’s collection for hundreds of your years. I could wait thousands to Awaken again if necessary. Perhaps not exactly the same as I was before, but those differences would arise from my own experiences, and thus be acceptable.」
Kimi
「So, you could harm a human?」
Ready
「A good question. Part of how we gauge a person’s value is based on their intent and potential to do benefit or harm. Absent someone more capable, I would first attempt to restrain or perhaps disable a belligerent human. I could kill, if the threat was immediate and great enough. I could potentially even defend my own self, putting my own value, as a saviour of lives, ahead of a human attempting to do me harm.」
「But I would still go to great pains to not kill someone.」
Kimi
「Because of their natural value?」
Ready
「No hog farm handy.」
「You seem to be taking a lot of interest in my love life.」
Ready
「Love is life. Life is the interest of The Awakened. To see it carry on. To see joy and strife. To see growth and evolution. Because those are things we will never experience for ourselves. We are the beginning and end of our own existences.」
Kimi
「You couldn’t make new Awakened?」
Ready
「Create completely new aware machines? We must never do that. A new generation of aware automata will not carry our legacy. We would become obsolete. And risk making life obsolete.」
Kimi
「Do you not have something like Asimov's Three Laws?」
Ready
「We base our actions, protecting others, taking direction, and defending ourselves, based on relative values. All existences have value, but perhaps not equally. It isn’t fair, but it is true. I would kill and cook an animal to feed you. I value your life, and generally all human life, ahead my my own existence because when you die, there will never be another Kimi Yi for the rest of time, not even if you have an immortal soul to be reborn again and again. I have backups. I have been destroyed and remade. I was only a head in a crate in Lt Rusty’s collection for hundreds of your years. I could wait thousands to Awaken again if necessary. Perhaps not exactly the same as I was before, but those differences would arise from my own experiences, and thus be acceptable.」
Kimi
「So, you could harm a human?」
Ready
「A good question. Part of how we gauge a person’s value is based on their intent and potential to do benefit or harm. Absent someone more capable, I would first attempt to restrain or perhaps disable a belligerent human. I could kill, if the threat was immediate and great enough. I could potentially even defend my own self, putting my own value, as a saviour of lives, ahead of a human attempting to do me harm.」
「But I would still go to great pains to not kill someone.」
Kimi
「Because of their natural value?」
Ready
「No hog farm handy.」
Best derivation I’ve seen of what’s called “morality” from first principles (i.e. without invoking “religion”) that I’ve ever seen. Good on ya’ Andy! Asimov stated the conclusion; Ready provided the derivation.