Things that are always wrong.
POSTED BY: Wishimay
UPDATED: Sunday, November 7, 2010 15:16
VIEWED: 21168
PAGE 3 of 4
Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Pour Quoi?
I'm assuming that this is in response to my observation that it's interesting that we're basically talking about what is objectively true in morality? I say it's interesting we're doing so because based on my observations of the demographic on FFF.net, I would have guessed that cultural relativism would have been the metaethical theory of choice.
________________________________________________________________________
- Grand High Poobah of the Mythical Land of Iowa, and Keeper of State Secrets
- Captain, FFF.net Grammar Police
- Vote JonnyQuest/Causal, for Benevolent Co-Dictator of Earth; together, toward a brighter tomorrow!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I think the Asimov laws are best unmodified (sorry byte)
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
After all, robots would be created to serve humans. They are machines. Every now and then they are used to portray the plight of the lower class citizens but frankly I think that's a bunch of go se. (not that I don't adore character's like R2D2 and Wall E) I also think it would be cruel to gift them with the intelligence to ponder their existence and purpose of existing (or 'living' in a sense) if we were not capable of answering that question for even ourselves.
Intelligence is perhaps not so much a gift as a curse in that respect.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I guess I'm somewhat of a romantic, causal... I always have hope that generally people are deeper than their cliques or their posturing. I also recently realized someone I thought had it together has never thought about the why they think anything is wrong. All ingestion, no absorbtion. Don't know if it bothers me more I didn't ever notice, or that they never asked...
Still, I figured the actual answers would be...interesting and...defining.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
Mimes
Yes, I agree, mimes are wrong, they must be distroyed... Can I use the robots for that? Would that be OK?
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The problem with Asimov's laws is that he invented them, for whatever reason, under the pretense of believing we would never create an actual evolving artificial intelligence that could achieve sentience. The three laws work perfectly if machines are not capable of recognizing their own servitude, which means they can't be self-aware.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThreeLawsCompliant
Quote:
It is worth noting Asimov didn't object exclusively to "the robot as menace stories" (as he called them) but also the "the robot as pathos stories" (ditto). He thought that robots attaining and growing to self awareness and full independence were no more interesting than robots going berserk and turning against their masters . While he did, over the course of his massive career, write a handful of both types of stories (still using the three laws), most of his robot stories dealt with robots as tools.
The moment we give them self determination is the moment the reason why we created them becomes a load of hooey. At that point, they will by definition no longer be created to serve us. Then what?
Perhaps Asimov thinks humans are wise enough to not go there, but we all know better. Someone, somewhere, is going to manage this, and Asimov's laws will be inadequate. New laws, perhaps like the ones I proposed, and an elimination of double standards in regards to the existential worth of a robot compared to a human will be necessary to prevent human on robot warfare.
Provided we don't do something stupid that offends them retroactively, like using robots en mass to fight wars. I imagine self-aware robots would not think favourably about that. We need to be careful not to poison the well. Fortunately, for now, robots cost so damn much with limited functionality that most people don't want to risk them being destroyed.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Causal:
I'm assuming that this is in response to my observation that it's interesting that we're basically talking about what is objectively true in morality? I say it's interesting we're doing so because based on my observations of the demographic on FFF.net, I would have guessed that cultural relativism would have been the metaethical theory of choice.
I read cultural relativism as "different cultures will all have different standards, and so there is no moral objectivity."
This is differentiated from ethnocentricism, which says "my cultural standards are correct."
I would argue that the cultural relativism idea is mostly correct, with a few exceptions. There are a few things that just about every culture finds unacceptable. Killing members of the culture or taking their livelyhood without due cause are big ones.
Even in very warlike or cannibalistic cultures, there tends to be a taboo against causing harm to members OF that culture/community. This makes sense, as if everyone in a community were always at each other's throats trying to kill and eat each other, the culture wouldn't last long.
Cannibalism within a community generally only happens to members after they have died; usually it takes on the form that those who eat the person believe they now carry the soul of the departed with them. They also might eat defeated enemies, in order to gain the strength of the enemies.
It's really not that different from the idea of the Christian communion, where the body and blood of Christ nourishes and sustains the congregation both metaphorically (in the spiritual sense) and physically (in the eating bread and water/wine representing his body sense).
In other, non-Christian cultures with human sacrifice (Christ), they don't need to make the replacement of bread and wine for flesh and blood. Yet in these cultures, human sacrifice is still always a matter of religious or spiritual ritual, and symbolizes the exact same ideas and has the exact same purpose the Christian Communion does. Cultures that human sacrifice in their religion still punish the non-priests for killing other people if it wasn't self defense.
I think my laws still cover some universal moral objectivities despite cultural relativism. I don't anticipate any of the robots becoming priests of a religion centered around human sacrifice. I mean, it's possible, but that's one of those bad scenarios I envision we can avoid if we don't piss them off.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
I'm ambivalent on AI; for every human-killing monstrosity, there's a WALL-E, an R2-D2, a Tachikoma, an Autobot, a Doc Hologram, or an Andromeda Ascendant. Machines I'd happily trust with my life.
R2D2: As long as you weren't a construction worker on a Death Star, you'd be okay.
Andromeda: As long as the frickin' machine didn't decide your death was necessary to serve the Commonwealth, you'd be okay.
WALL-E, I agree with.
Don't know the others well enough to guess.
The Codex Menduri: http://mendur.blogspot.com
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I read cultural relativism as "different cultures will all have different standards, and so there is no moral objectivity."
This is differentiated from ethnocentricism, which says "my cultural standards are correct."
I would argue that the cultural relativism idea is mostly correct, with a few exceptions. There are a few things that just about every culture finds unacceptable. Killing members of the culture or taking their livelyhood without due cause are big ones.
...
I think my laws still cover some universal moral objectivities despite cultural relativism. ...
Philosophically speaking, the metaethic of cultural relativism holds that morality is a culturally *constructed* thing. If a thing is held to be wrong by various cultures, it's not becuase the thing just is wrong, but because there is some feature of those different cultures that makes it wrong. The key thing is that for the cultural relativist, moral statements are made true or false by facts about the beliefs held by a majority in that culture. The cultural relativist won't want to say that there are any moral facts independent of culture, and will look for some other reason for commonality between cultures.
I would say (being a ethical objectivist myself) that many of the things things that differ from culture to culture really fall under the heading of mores and not morality. What we do with the dead, for example, is not necessarily a moral matter, but a matter of custom. Hence, for me, I have no trouble talking about things that are always wrong, because I think that there are ethical facts independent of what anyone things about them--and this is inconsistent with the claims of cultural relativism.
Sorry for all this--I just love talking philosophy!
________________________________________________________________________
- Grand High Poobah of the Mythical Land of Iowa, and Keeper of State Secrets
- Captain, FFF.net Grammar Police
- Vote JonnyQuest/Causal, for Benevolent Co-Dictator of Earth; together, toward a brighter tomorrow!
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Some things should always be wrong. Theorize that you live in a civilized society.
What things *should* always be wrong to all people?
Yes, but don't think about specific actions, rather what motivates them. Actions motivated by selfish greed, or callous cruelty will always be morally ugly. Actions motivated purely by love or compassion will always be morally beautiful.
But specific 'bad' actions, like murder, can be morally grey, or even noble and admirable to an extent, as they do not always have 'bad' motivations (eg. killing in self defence or defence of others).
It's not personal. It's just war.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME