[londons_explore]

> Or is HN mostly happy with deprecating humanity because our replacement has more teraflops?

If we manage to make a 'better' replacement for ourselves, is it actually a bad thing? Our cousin's on the hominoid family tree are all extinct, yet we don't consider that a mistake. AI made by us could well make us extinct. Is that a bad thing?

[gurkendoktor]

Your comment summarizes what I worry might be a more widespread opinion than I expected. If you think that human extinction is a fair price to pay for creating a supercomputer, then our value systems are so incompatible that I really don't know what to say.

I guess I wouldn't have been so angry about any of this before I had children, but now I'm very much in favor of prolonged human existence.

[idiotsecant]

> I'm very much in favor of prolonged human existence.

Serious question - why?

[samdjstephens]

What are your axioms on what’s important, if not the continued existence of the human race?

edit: I’m genuinely intrigued

[idiotsecant]

I suppose the same axioms of every ape that's ever existed (and really the only axioms that exist). My personal survival, my comfort, my safety, accumulation of resources to survive the lean times (even if there are no lean times), stimulation of my personal interests, and the same for my immediate 'tribe'. Since I have a slightly more developed cerebral cortex I can abstract that 'tribe' to include more than 10 or 12 people, which judging by your post you can too. And fortunate for us, because that little abstraction let us get past smashing each other with rocks, mostly.

I think the only difference between our outlooks is I don't think there's any reason that my 'tribe' shouldn't include non-biological intelligence. Why not shift your priorities to the expansion of general intelligence?

[goatlover]

Why should general intelligence continue to survive? You are placing a human value on continued existence.

[JoeAltmaier]

We have Neanderthal, Denisovan DNA (and two more besides). Our cousins are not exactly extinct - we are a blend of them. Sure no pure strains exist, but we are not a pure strain either!

[goatlover]

> If we manage to make a 'better' replacement for ourselves, is it actually a bad thing?

It's bad for all the humans alive at the time. Do you want to be replaced and have your life cut short? For that matter, why should something better replace us instead of coexist? We don't think killing off all other animals would be a good thing.

> Our cousin's on the hominoid family tree are all extinct, yet we don't consider that a mistake.

It's just how evolution played out. But if there was another hominid still alive along side us, advocating for it's extinction because we're a bit smarter would be considered genocidal and deeply wrong.