[mcslee]

Playing Devil's Advocate: if these simulations are truly modeled after humans, why are you so sure that they won't buy into many of the same religious ideas and reaffirm what many humans naturally think and do? Would a simulation like this even be aware that it was not just another person?

It seems like the answer to this question MUST be that the simulation cannot tell the difference between itself and a normal human. Otherwise, your argument is moot, because the religious folk will simply be able to point at this thing and say "clearly this thing is different from us -- it even knows that it's different, so obviously this is not the way our 'souls' work."

[paulgb]

I think what Allocator2008 is getting at is that creating artificial life would show that there is nothing mystical or non-physical about consciousness. This would partly poke a hole in the argument for existence of God that the creation of life and/or consciousness has never been witnessed.

To have the artificial brain not be aware it is not a regular person, or to have the brain buy into religious ideas, would actually make the point (that the artificial brain is just like a human's, and thus consciousness is not mystical or non-physical) stronger.

Edit: khafra, ericb, and alexandros made the point I was trying to make better and in less words in replies to this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=574258

[ewjordan]

I think what Allocator2008 is getting at is that creating artificial life would show that there is nothing mystical or non-physical about consciousness. This would partly poke a hole in the argument for existence of God that the creation of life and/or consciousness has never been witnessed.

Fear not. Even if the thing achieves consciousness, writes poetry, falls in love, critiques literature, etc., people will still claim that it's just faking it. "Neat trick, but it still doesn't have a soul, so it can't be conscious!"

If I had to guess, I'd say that it would take a fresh generation, growing up with this sort of thing all around it, to accept (en masse) that the computers had whatever that special "something" is that we have.

Personally, the chaos I'm really looking forward to is the legal mess that would arise - what happens when a computer, aided and guided by nobody in particular, does something illegal? Creates a piece of art and wants copyright protection? Who do you sue when a computer sets up its own Pirate Bay? Do you let it get its own bank account? What about when it figures out how to beat the stock market by hacking e-mail accounts of executives and returning trades based on insider information to clueless traders that just follow its black-box suggestions - is that insider trading if the system wasn't explicitly told to do that and no human ever sees the information? And so on...our legal system is neither equipped for this stuff, nor agile enough to adapt to it in a timely fashion, and these issues will remain unresolved far past the point of no return.

[paulgb]

> Fear not. Even if the thing achieves consciousness, writes poetry, falls in love, critiques literature, etc., people will still claim that it's just faking it. "Neat trick, but it still doesn't have a soul, so it can't be conscious!"

Good point. Academics seem to have accepted that consciousness isn't magic for a while now, so building an artificial brain might not be so convincing for the rest of the world.

> Personally, the chaos I'm really looking forward to is the legal mess that would arise...

Yeah. I wouldn't even know where to start with figuring out some of those questions. I'm sure someone has written about this already, so if anyone knows who and where this has been written about I'd be interested in reading about it.