Re: poly: Re: singleton self-interest

David Brin wrote:

> The argument over whether a singleton can plan for its own dissolution
> misses a point. Most volitional entities preserve their existence because
> to do so has become an imperative via Darwinian selection. (Because each
> one is a descendant of other entities who happened to care about self-
> preservation, the trait got reinforced.)

When we are designing brand new volitional enteties, these enteties
have not evolved via Darwinian selection, so we shouldn't suppose
that they will place a high value on self-preservation. What has
evolved via Darwinian selection, on the other hand, are their
creators. We should expect the robots to place a high value on
whatever their creators place a high value on -- which is the
preservation of the creators rather than the preservation of the
robots.

> Singletons must be designed
> from the start to evade this scenario, retaining volitional control over
> dissolution strictly on the basis of standards and goals. Once singletons
> (or robots) are allowed to self-reproduce, Darwin's logic sets in.

I don't know what it would mean for a singleton to self-reproduce (a
singleton is, so to speak, the whole global system rather than a
specific robot or business company). As for robots, I don't see any
reason why they should be made to self-reproduce. It would seem more
efficient to have other robots that specialize in
robot-manufacturing. Even if they do self-reproduce, Darwin's logic
will only lead to evolution if there is a significant chance of
mutation or recombination, neither of which seems very hard to avoid
in machine replication.

> The
> descendants of those who choose to live won't allow themselves to be
> dissolved.

Yes, *if* we wan't the singleton to eventually dissolve (and that's a
big if), then we would presumably want it to disolve in such a way
that its resources are split between its founders (which can have
continued to exist within the singleton) and their
offspring/creations).

_____________________________________________________
Nick Bostrom
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method
London School of Economics
n.bostrom@lse.ac.uk
http://www.hedweb.com/nickb
Received on Fri May 1 23:22:19 1998