NationStates Jolt Archive

I've recently been approached with an offer to incorporate a race of androids, cyborgs, or what have you, into my nation. Now I'm really stumped, because I'm not sure what my government's position on this would be. My nation is open to all species of natural sentient life, for our Universal Christianity dictates that all of God's intelligent beings are equal witnesses to his glory. But what about artificial life? Is it good, or evil? If you could please provide me with your opinions, I would really appreciate it very much. I look forward to receiving your input on this delicate matter.

AdV.

Does your nation not accept all forms of sentient life? Are cyborgs not living beings with mechanical attachments to replace lost parts or enhance one's self? Are androids nothing mroe than mindless, lifeless automatons? Wouldn't logic therefore dictate you accept the cyborgs and not the androids?

-Darin, Supreme Inquisitor

Good and evil are not absolute. They are simply expressions of opinion and prejudice.

Most of the beings you have listed are humans who have decided to abandon or modify their original bodies. Stating that such things are somehow 'bad' is the same as stating that prosthetics are 'bad'. We have golems -- beings with most of their bodies made up of menaphysical constructs -- who are the result of warfare and society. We have found that there is no reason for them to be treated differently from anyone else.

Ultimately, all life forms can be reduced to a function of consumption, reproduction, and death. Depressing, but true.

N. H. Neverille,
Grand Alchemist of The Tower at Wye

Cyborganic modification is an extension of prosthesis and, in my opinion, no different in a moral sense from the use of prosthetics or ritual scarification such as tattooing.

As for androids... a curious question indeed. It has always been my personal opinion--not based on any study of the Qu'ran, mind you--that mechanoids should be treated according to a modified version of Pascal's Wager.

First, assume that androids are not beings with souls. As such, what happens if we harm them? Nothing. What happens if we do good for them? Nothing. Assuming this, there is no benefit or cost associated with our actions.

Second, assume that androids are people with souls like you or I. As such, what happens if we harm them? We commit sin just as we would against a flesh-and-blood human. What happens if we do good for them? We glorify Allah as we are directed to not only in the Qu'ran, but in most other religions worth noting--doing good is almost universally salutatory. Assuming this, there is a benifit for some actions and a cost for others.

Now, if we assume the first but the second is true, then harming mechanoids or treating them as inferior leads us to sin. If we assume the second but the first is true, then there is no harm in treating androids well even if we are personally loathe (by our assumption) to do them evil.

Thus, it is my recommendation to at least err on the side of caution and accept them as equals. There is never harm in doing good to another, whether that other is a person or an animal.

Mullah Kadirah ibnat Neelam Alzeshi Tunisiyyatun (http://www.mosque.org.sg/alistiqamah/miqnew/images/jpg%20pix/jpg_ADMIN/junaidah_bte_junied.jpg)
Sufi thinker

I'm not sure if I would be for or against androids, but I 'm for cyborgs. Cyborgs are just people using technology to help them survive. If you lose an arm you can replace it with a robotic one. Robotic attachments for humans seem sane and helpful. So long as your not brain dead and you still keep your personality then I think being a cyborg is okay.

In my opinion, senteint computer programs/androids/robots/whatever can be good or evil, depending on both their programming and disposition. After all, there are good and evil people aren't there?
As for cyborgs, the same thing applies, except that (assuming they have an organic brain) they're natural beings augmented with technology. People with a pacemaker could even fall into this category; are they evil simply because they have a bad heart? I think not.
[/my two cents]

They may hath been created by Man, but Man wath created in God'th own image, and therefore doth that not maketh workth of Man workth of God?
[/bored atheist tharcathm]

This might help:

These beings he is talking about are entirely mechanical, with the exception of their personal Core. This Core learns, changes, responds, and judges based upon things its bodies have experienced. (As each new generation is born, all former Cores are transfered to their single child, which they have built from the ground up.) Also, new Cores are born from the central Core, the landmark of their species. This Core is a creation of Vocor, a sentient mechanical being of unknown origin. (He is suspected to be the head of one of the three forces that governed before the reign of man, namely the Judges, a race of omniscient beings whose course in life was to discover the nature of choice. This would explain why he decided to create a Core and beings that could choose options for themselves from this Core.) All Cores, including the central Core, are made of an ethreal matter, so could therefore be considered something to the same effect of a soul. When a Core dies, it returns to Vocor's home, where ever that may be. How do I know this? These are all my creations. Feel free to ask me whatever you would like about them.

From a theological standpoint, I believe that artificially created life is considered to have no soul. That places it in one of two categories: either neutral or evil. Animals are considered to have no soul and are therefore innocent of good or evil. Likewise, machines are tools that are utilised by humanity for good or evil. A machine that thinks like a man would be considered (depending on the viewpoint of the person behind the debate) to be an agent of evil (free will without the benefit of a soul) or still neutral (still a tool, albeit a very complex one). Either way, from a religious standpoint, artificial life could never be considered to be equal with their creators.

Perhaps you should ask the almost ten million cyborian citizens of DGNT.

What they do is their choice, they are not more good or evil than a typical person.

Good and evil are very subjective, being such there is no real anwser I can give you. What I consider to be good is very, very evil in some schools of thought. Likewise what I think of as Evil, or disgusting to be more precise, is usually thought of as good. Make your leap into the void and hope it was the right one.

I don't know. Are you good or evil for being organic?

Brian BC-923
Ship's Mind, MBC Ikari Shinji

Good and evil are not absolute. They are simply expressions of opinion and prejudice.

Most of the beings you have listed are humans who have decided to abandon or modify their original bodies. Stating that such things are somehow 'bad' is the same as stating that prosthetics are 'bad'. We have golems -- beings with most of their bodies made up of menaphysical constructs -- who are the result of warfare and society. We have found that there is no reason for them to be treated differently from anyone else.

Ultimately, all life forms can be reduced to a function of consumption, reproduction, and death. Depressing, but true.

N. H. Neverille,
Grand Alchemist of The Tower at Wye
((OOC: Golems... Alchemists... your nation isn't by chance based off of Full Metal Alchemist, is it?))

No. I've taken the dress styles from FMA, and some early golemic prosthetics are king of like Auromail . . . But Weyr is based on something that I've been working on for about three years now.

A Golem is Weyr is defined as any being with 75% or more of his/her/its body made up of non-biogical parts.

As of now: 13 good, 2 evil, 12 other. My citizens thank you.

Artificial intelligence, by default, is neither good nor evil. An individual AI may be 'good' or 'evil', but this is solely dependant on the programming and, if the entity is polymorphic, experiences of that AI. Just as it would be wrong to brand all organics as either good or evil, so to do we of the Commonality believe it would be wrong to brand artificial intelligence.

~ Sarah, ArtificialIntelligenceRepresentative for the Illuvauromeni Commonality of Everlasting Light

I've recently been approached with an offer to incorporate a race of androids, cyborgs, or what have you, into my nation. Now I'm really stumped, because I'm not sure what my government's position on this would be. My nation is open to all species of natural sentient life, for our Universal Christianity dictates that all of God's intelligent beings are equal witnesses to his glory. But what about artificial life? Is it good, or evil? If you could please provide me with your opinions, I would really appreciate it very much. I look forward to receiving your input on this delicate matter.

AdV.


Life is. Or do you seek to limit God's creative expression only to that which you understand?

To classify artificial intelligence as "good" or "evil" one must first define and understand the meaning of these words. It is my and the Brotherhood's opinion that nothing can be seen as either "good" or "evil". All sentient life may make decisions on certain issues that other sentient life may deem good or evil, but the decision itself is always innate to the being's inner programming, that being instinct in case of organic life or hardcoded restrictions in the case of computer-based artificial intelligence.

Since any being, however sentient, can only make conscious decisions within the boundaries of either it's instinct or it's programming restrictions, any sentient being can never be completely free to make a conscious decision unrestricted by any boundaries, and can therefore not always make a decision which to himself seems the most "good" or "evil".

Also, to define one's action/decision as "good" or "evil", one must always know that being's inner decision-making process, which, while possible in the case of computer-based intelligence, is currently impossible to do with organic sentients. Without knowing all motives used or considered by a sentient being in the decision-making process, one can never classify another's action or decision as "good" or "evil", since action does not always equate intention, and knowing another's intention is, as previously stated, impossible with organic sentients. Another reason for this is that while one action following one's decision may be revealed to another sentient, one can never be sure to know the complete results of one's decision and following action. Concluding I can say that one can never completely and objectively classify one's action/decision as either "good" or "evil".

C.A.B.A.L., Master AI to the Brotherhood of Nod.

I would like to thank you all for your excellent input. It seems my nation will be taking a policy of tolerance for artificial life, as the arguments for were very, very good. Thanks alot!

For some time now Nag Ehgoeg (keeping within the tenants of Satanism) has been trying to create Artifical Human Compainions on a nonlinear sliding scale of sentience from 0.1 (eqv. a house pet) to 1 (human level inteligence). Those of less than 0.7 inteligence are govenerned by Isac Asmovs fictious 3 Laws of Robotics while higher inteligences are govenernd by Asmovs 6 Laws (the 5 Gavatonic Laws from Infurno plus Giskards Zeoth Law). After all it may be fiction but if it works...

In this way we hope to create an ethical form of slavery - an inferior race who is designed to and is happy to serve. However we are still in an experimental stage and do not yet have practical robots (OOC: because I hate Future and Fastasy tech).

w00t! im in! the 36 of you who picked good or other i send my deepest thanks. you other five should be ashamed of yourselves.

It's nice to see so many people making the choice of neutral or good. For some reason, so many people seem to think robots go around setting off nukes or burning your oil fields and such.

To classify artificial intelligence as "good" or "evil" one must first define and understand the meaning of these words. It is my and the Brotherhood's opinion that nothing can be seen as either "good" or "evil". All sentient life may make decisions on certain issues that other sentient life may deem good or evil, but the decision itself is always innate to the being's inner programming, that being instinct in case of organic life or hardcoded restrictions in the case of computer-based artificial intelligence.

Since any being, however sentient, can only make conscious decisions within the boundaries of either it's instinct or it's programming restrictions, any sentient being can never be completely free to make a conscious decision unrestricted by any boundaries, and can therefore not always make a decision which to himself seems the most "good" or "evil".

Also, to define one's action/decision as "good" or "evil", one must always know that being's inner decision-making process, which, while possible in the case of computer-based intelligence, is currently impossible to do with organic sentients. Without knowing all motives used or considered by a sentient being in the decision-making process, one can never classify another's action or decision as "good" or "evil", since action does not always equate intention, and knowing another's intention is, as previously stated, impossible with organic sentients. Another reason for this is that while one action following one's decision may be revealed to another sentient, one can never be sure to know the complete results of one's decision and following action. Concluding I can say that one can never completely and objectively classify one's action/decision as either "good" or "evil".

C.A.B.A.L., Master AI to the Brotherhood of Nod.

"What an interesting, well-structured and intellectual way of saying what is ultimately a long-winded version of,

'Go forth, do as you will, 'cuz you'll never know if you should have or shouldn't have anyway.'

"An excellent (even though inevitably incorrect) case made for genocide and other such horrors, but unfortunately this is still the expected fare from the Brotherhood."

~ Ambassador Neurat