[MURG] Re: x prize write up

[Ed Minchau]

 --- James Swayze <swayzej at comcast.net> wrote: 
> >
> >
> >Message: 4
> >Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 14:43:36 -0400
> >From: Eric Zilli <digfarenough at gmail.com>
> >To: murg at minduploading.org
> >Subject: [MURG] x prize write up
> >Reply-To: murg at minduploading.org

> >**This is the only section of the form that gives
> us a chance to
> >describe just how beneficial this technology would
> be. Mind uploading
> >would have benefits of all sorts, including:
> business productivity and
> >profit (uploaded employees could do many days of
> work during the time
> >it takes a flesh employee to do one, and uploaded
> employees could be
> >paid less since all they need is electricity),
> medical (medical care
> >costs would decrease thanks to the elimination of
> disease, starvation,
> >etc), scientific (mankind would no longer lose its
> greatest minds to
> >the depths of death), and so forth. Given that the
> money for this
> >prize has to come from somewhere, appealing to the
> pockets of large
> >businesses might be a good way to win people
> over--hence my emphasis
> >on economic benefits.
> >
> 
> I can see a schism develop between the interests of
> employers and 
> employees. Big business my be interested in
> electronic employees but to 
> what benefit are these to workers that would be
> displaced? After all, an 
> electronic employee could be copied doubling,
> tripling, or to the nth 
> multiplying its efforts at little cost to the
> employer effectively 
> putting all their physical employees out of work,
> onto government dole 
> lines and greatly destabilizing the economy and
> society. This of course 
> applies to an absolute free market approach to
> destructive uploading.
> 

This argument has been made and thoroughly refuted
dozens of times throughout the Industrial Revolution
and on into the present Information Age.  It is
straight out of the philosophy of the Luddites.

At little cost to the employer?  These "nth copies"
are the uploaded minds of human beings, no matter how
many instances are present at any one time.  All human
rights would have to apply to uploads, including the
right to be free from slavery.  They would have to be
paid, just the same as any other employee.

> However, if there is applied a modicum of regulation
> that protects 
> physical employees from wanton unfair big business
> practices and we take 
> the non destructive approach then a different and
> benefiting all 
> scenario may be reached. Here a person's non
> destructively created 
> virtual clone can go to work for the individual
> doubling their efforts 
> for the fee of a license. 

Again, an uploaded personality would still possess all
the rights of a human being.  They could not be owned,
even by the human being whose mind is the template for
their own.  

>Further copies requiring
> more licensing fees 
> of course. This increases the wealth of individuals
> without increasing 
> their personal workloads, assuming their virtual
> clones agree to go to 
> work for them. Surely virtual incentives could be
> created, like virtual 
> heaven like resorts for large parts of the clone's
> vtime for some incentive.

Where on earth does the idea that a government must
issue a license come from?  On what basis is a
government's involvement merited?

> 
> Big business may prefer the absolute laisez faire
> approach for the 
> reason that destructive uploading and unfettered
> copying would cost them 
> the least but this would be had at the cost of
> economic upheaval leaving 
> many disenfranchised, out of work, overburdening
> government welfare 
> programs -- assuming any still exist, and likely
> filling new ranks of a 
> new cause for terrorism. This cannot be allowed.

This is predicated upon flawed assumptions:
1) that the "software" (the personality, memories,
creativity and so on of the original brain) would
belong to some third party, as a slave
2) that the uploaded personalities involved would
meekly accept slavery
3) that the productive efforts of ten copies of the
same mind would equal ten times the producivity of the
original worker
4) that the introduction of a new technology would
force people to lose their jobs, forever consigning
them to receipt of welfare.

This fourth assumption in particular has been refuted
many times, with the introduction of many
technologies.  Name a labor-saving technology
introduced over the last 200 years, and you will see
the same Luddite protest, followed by acceptance of
the technology and the exact opposite result of what
was predicted by the Luddites: you get increased
employment and whole new areas of employment.

> 
> Not everyone will need non destructive uploading.
> Some will be too old 
> to take advantage of hopefully upcoming biological
> life extending 
> technologies and so, providing uploading is
> available they may opt to 
> continue existence virtually. What then also must be
> made possible is 
> for those dying and being resurrected into virtual
> existence to be 
> allowed to allocate their work product proceeds to
> still living family 
> members. This might not be emphasized if big
> business had their way 
> exclusively.
> 
> James

What is wrong with an uploaded human being still
possessing human rights?  Why should they have to be
enslaved to anyone?  And why "still-living family
members"?  Would that exclude the other copies of
themselves?

Ed

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