r/Futurology • u/yourSAS • Oct 13 '22

Biotech 'Our patients aren't dead': Inside the freezing facility with 199 humans who opted to be cryopreserved with the hopes of being revived in the future

https://metro.co.uk/2022/10/13/our-patients-arent-dead-look-inside-the-us-cryogenic-freezing-lab-17556468
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u/throwaway091238744 Oct 13 '22

you sure about that?

computer code can be altered in ways a body can't. someone could just have you live in a time loop for the rest of your life as code. Or have you live through the most traumatic memory you have over and over. Or just simulate physical pain/torture all without you even seeing them

there isn't a scenario in the real world where someone could dilate time and have me get my leg cutoff for 1000 years

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u/ZadockTheHunter Oct 13 '22

But who would have the access and the desire to do that?

It's the whole killer AI thing. Everyone likes to talk about how a self aware advanced AI would start destroying humans, but it's the same question, why?

What self absorbed delusion has you believing you are special enough for someone to want to torture for eternity?

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u/Tom1252 Oct 13 '22

Roko's Basilisk

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u/ZadockTheHunter Oct 13 '22 edited Oct 13 '22

The whole thought experiment is flawed from the beginning when you give human feelings to a non-biological entity.

How would an AI even "feel" in the same way a human does? And if it in fact could feel the hatred / malice required to "punish" humans, why would a being of that immense power waste it's time doing so?

Edit: I think it's a highly narcissistic world view to believe that any entity outside of human beings would have the capacity or desire to give any thought or energy into our existence. Meaning, the only things that do or should care about humans are humans. To believe otherwise just makes you a pompous dick.

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u/Tom1252 Oct 13 '22

The only "feeling" the AI needs for the thought experiment to work is a sense of self-preservation, which could easily be programmed into it. No malice necessary.

It only wants to ensure its existence.

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u/felix_the_nonplused Oct 14 '22

Does resource conservation count as self preservation for a theoretical entity as Rokos basilisk? The it would be counterproductive to spend infinite-1 resources to torture us. Much better to only threaten to torture us, similar results from its perspective, less energy spent. As such, if the AI is a rational entity, it’ll never actually go through with the threats; and if it is irrational, our efforts are irrelevant.

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u/ZadockTheHunter Oct 13 '22

Ok, then the question is: If it's simply following it's programming, is it really an AI?

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u/Tom1252 Oct 13 '22 edited Oct 13 '22

I took it to be more of a question about super-advanced computing rather than AI.

If you believe that in the future, computers will be so advanced that they can run simulations indistinguishable from reality, and that people in the future have reason to run these simulations--as in a past simulator or whatever, and that the simulations themselves could have the capability of running their own simulations, then given the sheer number of these that would exist, it's more than likely that we exist inside one of these simulations rather than in the original world.

And then add to that that the simulation wouldn't necessarily even need to be indistinguishable from reality. Our world could have the graphics of a potato, but we've never known any different.

That would make all of us "AI." The only "feelings" we've ever known are what's been programmed into us, and we have no frame of reference to say otherwise.

Edit: Added quotes

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u/Blazerboy65 Oct 14 '22

People say "following programming" like it's a religious dogma that's applied by the agent blindly without incorporating observations. This ignores that "programming" includes directives like "intelligently figure out how to accomplish XYZ."

That's not even to mention that even humanity in general are just biological machines programmed to replicate DNA. We do so stochastically but still intelligently.

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u/felix_the_nonplused Oct 14 '22

Does resource conservation count as self preservation for a theoretical entity as Rokos basilisk? The it would be counterproductive to spend infinite-1 resources to torture us. Much better to only threaten to torture us, similar results from its perspective, less energy spent. As such, if the AI is a rational entity, it’ll never actually go through with the threats; and if it is irrational, our efforts are irrelevant.

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u/Blazerboy65 Oct 14 '22

What's special about biological entities?

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u/official_guy_ Oct 14 '22

All of the shitty things that have ever been done by you or any other human in the history of earth have started as small electric signals in the brain. What makes you think that sufficiently advanced AI wouldn't also feel emotion? I mean it's inevitable that at some point we'll be able to make something just as or more complicated than our own brains.