Comment by mrob
10 days ago
The copy was brought into existence without its consent. This isn't the same as normal reproduction because babies are not born with human sapience, and as a society we collectively agree that children do not have full human rights. IMO, copying a consciousness is worse than murder because the victimization is ongoing. It doesn't matter if the original consents because the copy is not the original.
> This isn't the same as normal reproduction because babies are not born with human sapience
So you're fine with cloning consciousness as long as it initially runs sufficiently glitchy?
If a "cloned" consciousness has no memories, and a unique personality, and no awareness of any previous activity, how is it a clone? That's going well beyond merely glitchy. In that case the main concern would be the possibility of slavery as Ar-Curunir mentioned.
> how is it a clone?
That's my point exactly: I don't see what makes clones any more or less deserving of ethical consideration than any other sentient beings brought into existence consciously.
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> The copy was brought into existence without its consent. This isn't the same as normal reproduction because babies are not born with human sapience, and as a society we collectively agree that children do not have full human rights.
That is a reasonable argument for why it's not the same. But it is no argument at all for why being brought into existence without one's consent is a violation of bodily autonomy, let alone a particularly bad one - especially given that the copy would, at the moment its existence begin, identical to the original, who just gave consent.
If anything, it is very, very obviously a much smaller violation of consent then conceiving a child.
The original only consents for itself. It doesn't matter if the copy is coerced into sharing the experience of giving that consent, it didn't actually consent. Unlike a baby, all its memories are known to a third party with the maximum fidelity possible. Unlike a baby, everything it believes it accomplished was really done by another person. When the copy understands what happened it will realize it's a victim of horrifying psychological torture. Copying a consciousness is obviously evil and aw124 is correct.
I feel like the only argument you're successfully making is that you would find it inevitably evil/immoral to be a cloned consciousness. I don't see how that automatically follows for the rest of humanity.
Sure, there are astronomical ethical risks and we might be better off not doing it, but I think your arguments are losing that nuance, and I think it's important to discuss the matter accurately.
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You are making a bunch of unfounded assetions, not arguments.
>The copy was brought into existence without its consent
This may surprise you but EVERYONE is brought into existence without consent. At least the pre-copy state of the copy agreed to be copied.
It obviously doesn't surprise me because I specifically mentioned babies.
I'd also be interested in your moral distinction between having children and cloning consciousness (in particular in a world where the latter doesn't result in inevitable exploitation, a loss of human rights etc.) then.
Typically, real humans have some agency on their own existence.
A simulated human is entirely at the mercy of the simulator; it is essentially a slave. As a society, we have decided that slavery is illegal for real humans; what would distinguish simulated humans from that?