51–60 of 65 posts
I wonder what a system built of self-interested-interested transport robots would look like, especially in times of disruption and crisis.
How about an ownerless house that keeps its own rent money? An ownerless McDonald's franchise? Ownership is not just about money. Driverless cars don't really change anything about the concept of ownership. If you think driverless taxis are such a great idea and you want them to be operated in a non-greedy way, start a non-profit, or start a corporation and make it public so that anyone who wants can invest and share…
Why would this necessarily be true? Several authors have written about algorithmically generated & operated companies or entities (Charlie Stross, the Ghost in the Shell) either as litigation shields or entities which outlived their owners but continued to operate. The idea is certainly odd, to essentially create autonomous and roughly speaking self-sufficient/directed artificial creatures, but it's consistent at lea…
Until we develop truly sentient machines, it's preposterous to think that a "thing" could own itself in any meaningful way (even corporations have humans acting on their behalf).
Also, what is the incentive to do this? It's far more likely that autonomous cars will be handled like train and bus systems.
And finally, as a programmer, any notion of (non-sentient) computer programs being granted autonomy is a nightmare to me. Yes, we can make very nice semi-autonomous toys, but the real world is simply far too complex to expect any machine to be able to handle all of it. This is why we have emergency overrides.
Our tolerance for errors made by machines is far lower than our tolerance for errors made by humans, anyway. If a machine autonomously made a mistake that resulted in the loss of human life, it'd be an outrage even if no human could have fared any better under the same circumstances. The liability alone would be a headache.
Well, there is a tree in Athens, Georgia (USA) which legally owns itself. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_That_Owns_Itself
Potentially significant bits from the above wikipedia page: The original transfer of the deed would not be valid because 'Such a deed, even if it did exist, would have no legal standing. Under common law, the person receiving the property in question must have the legal capacity to receive it, and the property must be delivered to—and accepted by—the recipient.' and ' Athens-Clarke County confirms that the tree is in…
That the public plays along has more to do with novelty and tradition than with a serious legal precedent. Saying that the tree de facto owns itself despite the lack of legal underpinning is like saying Emperor Norton was de facto the emperor of the United States because people accepted his fake money as legal tender and acknowledged his claims.
Consider if Emperor Norton would have engaged in an armed conflict with the US government, for example. It'd be pretty obvious that he would be treated as an American citizen, not as a foreign head of state. Likewise if the Tree That Owns Itself's supposed legal status were ever at odds with the well-being of humans (to a degree that dwarfs its cultural value), it's pretty obvious who's side the courts would be on.
At best, the tree could be treated as a corporation with the municipal government or the public acting on its behalf.
This is a cool concept for lots of things, maybe even big things like companies and utilities. A for-profit entity that operates just like a normal one, but is programmed to not to simply maximize profits but to maximize social good. It would work well on things that don't require too much human thinking to run (just balancing equations and running equipment), but are normally hindered by self-interest.
Just be careful that you don't let your "social good maximising" AI talk to your "global resource management" AI. That is how Skynet happens.
But I guess if left unchecked, as technology improves, things would tend towards Skynet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would this necessarily be true? Several authors have written about algorithmically generated & operated companies or entities (Charlie Stross, the Ghost in the Shell) either as litigation shields or entities which outlived their owners but continued to operate. The idea is certainly odd, to essentially create autonomous and roughly speaking self-sufficient/directed artificial creatures, but it's consistent at lea…
For some entities it makes sense (the lobsters in Accelerando clearly benefit from it and their emancipation does not do any harm) but for society as a whole it is surely a dangerous idea.
By what and who's metric? There is no stable, verifiable entity "society as a whole".
I think the legal consequences would by far surpass any of the more practical aspects mentioned here ? Something of value NOT owned (ultimately) by a person of a government ? What if there is a flaw in the decision software and something goes horribly wrong ? Would not be the first time... The software is written by someone, the decision to use the software was done by someone, etc. Still if really no one else is to…
This argument applies to people too and we have ways to deal with it other than people being owned.