tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post6410234468107947170..comments2023-10-30T04:16:25.917-04:00Comments on Sentient Developments: Will we "uplift" animals to sapiency?Georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13003484633933455827noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-37172206031312629722009-04-18T08:38:00.000-04:002009-04-18T08:38:00.000-04:00As someone who worked with Akeakamai, the real dol...As someone who worked with Akeakamai, the real dolphin who became a character in Startide Rising I feel I can comment on how different dolphins are. One example. We had a play choice experiment where we showed the dolphin two toys, she picked one and we gave it to her. She HATED it. One day we accidentally gave her the toy she had NOT picked...and she loved it. Given a binary choice she indicated the option she did not want. Totally valid, totally arbitrary, and it took the monkey-boys months to notice. <br />Brian TarboxBrian Tarboxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11506285455540985587noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-55524066201041466142009-04-10T22:24:00.000-04:002009-04-10T22:24:00.000-04:00One of the themes I found fascinating in Brin's Up...One of the themes I found fascinating in Brin's Uplift Unvierse is the concept that cetaceans ALREADY have their own civilization and that it is very different from ours. Perhaps, Uplift might be a way for us to communicate - truly communicate - with dolphins or chimps, understanding there world view? I think Brin's Uplift concept is done with the idea of expanding the "client" species' minds - making tools that dolphins could use to compensate for the lack of hands/opposable thumbs... Humans tend to project our concepts onto everything with which we interact, so it's perhaps inevitable that our ideas would be imposed on the client races, at least at first. The very existence of the USA is proof that people can and do change their patterns of thought.bajangrrlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-64301770855777353442009-03-24T18:50:00.000-04:002009-03-24T18:50:00.000-04:00I personally believe the whole idea is flawed. I’m...I personally believe the whole idea is flawed. I’m a rationalist and a pragmatist. If I do not have a sufficient reason to peruse something then I would not. I have never understood morality or ethics, my mind does not work along those principles, and I’m perplexed by the term “moral currency”. I would not protest against animal uplift, however I believe we have more pressing concerns. Maybe one day in the far future, if a scientist feels bored then why not.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-6364436109737208202009-03-24T07:47:00.000-04:002009-03-24T07:47:00.000-04:00Another issue is long-term potential danger. Ther...Another issue is long-term potential danger. There's every reason to think that an encounter with an extraterrestrial intelligence would be dangerous; encounters between culturally-different human populations have often been violent, with the more technologically advanced eventually conquering the less advanced, and intelligences who were not even of our own species would be even more alien.<BR/><BR/>Fortunately, extraterrestrial intelligent species probably don't exist -- but why risk creating an artificial version of the same problem?<BR/><BR/>Superior AI will be incorporated into the human mind so that it enhances our own capabilities rather than forming a rival "species". Giving animals the intelligence to build a civilization of their own would inherently mean risking the latter course.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-1710124233085161772009-03-24T07:29:00.000-04:002009-03-24T07:29:00.000-04:00Here's a comment I found on Mac Tonnies' blog:http...Here's a comment I found on Mac Tonnies' blog:<BR/><BR/>http://www.posthumanblues.blogspot.com/<BR/><BR/>I see nothing philosophically wrong with animal uplift, but the concept is freighted with some alarming anthropocentric baggage. "Uplifting" animals to function as peers might sound liberatingly utopian, but the very notion of "peer" suggests, at least to me, beings more or less like ourselves.<BR/><BR/>As a potential "patron" race, we're bound to project our own preconceptions of personhood onto the animal species in question; our future uplifted friends might very well thank us, but they'll be doing so in a singularly human-like manner (in which case we might be better off poring our energies into the development of sentient machines instead of pretending to be faithful to a given species' zoological source code).<BR/><BR/>Well-intentioned as they are, proponents of animal uplift labor under the dubious assumption that there's something innately wrong (or at least existentially limiting) about animal-hood. On the other hand, anyone who's had a close relationship with an animal is bound to question such certainty. Sure, it might be nice to jam with my cats about quantum theory, but I sense they're quite content in their feline-hood -- and who am I to deprive them of that?<BR/><BR/>I'd go so far as to propose that animals are already engaging us in a meaningful dialogue, although perhaps not the sort of dialogue depicted in Brin's canon. That we've yet to understand our fellow mammals on their own terms remains an emasculating reminder that perhaps our "patronage" is neither needed nor desired.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6753820.post-22160685635931297192009-03-24T01:36:00.000-04:002009-03-24T01:36:00.000-04:00Beyond a fictional trope, I don't really see the p...Beyond a fictional trope, I don't really see the point of the uplift concept. An uplifted dolphin wouldn't be a talking dolphin, it would just be a synthetic sapience in dolphin shape.<BR/><BR/>Now, I can certainly see the value in creating synthetic sapients, but why make them doppelgangers of existing proto-sapients?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com