I’d heard that an academic review of Age of Em was forthcoming from the new Journal of Posthuman Studies. And after hearing about Baum’s review, the author Steve Fuller of this second academic review (which won’t be published for a few months) gave me permission to quote from it here. First some praise:
One point struck me which may be relevant for biohumans. The dramatic growth of the EM economy would make an even small investment like 100$ at the beginning of the EM age to end being an enormous amount of money after the 2 years period. Should we seriously be looking to invest into AI companies with the hope that at some point in time one will start the EM age?
"So at any one time the larger risk is that biohumans won’t see ems as basically the same"
Robin, your transporter thought experiment supports this statement if by "risk" you mean "probability". But if we take "risk" to mean "expected magnitude of unpleasant consequences", it seems clear that during the vast majority of the em era (namely, *all* of it following the brief transition during which em capabilities vastly outstrip those of biohumans), the risk of ems mistreating biohumans is hugely larger than the reverse.
One point struck me which may be relevant for biohumans. The dramatic growth of the EM economy would make an even small investment like 100$ at the beginning of the EM age to end being an enormous amount of money after the 2 years period. Should we seriously be looking to invest into AI companies with the hope that at some point in time one will start the EM age?
I meant "probability" .
"So at any one time the larger risk is that biohumans won’t see ems as basically the same"
Robin, your transporter thought experiment supports this statement if by "risk" you mean "probability". But if we take "risk" to mean "expected magnitude of unpleasant consequences", it seems clear that during the vast majority of the em era (namely, *all* of it following the brief transition during which em capabilities vastly outstrip those of biohumans), the risk of ems mistreating biohumans is hugely larger than the reverse.