Uplift - helping out other species

[Bluenose]

Actually I quite agree that animals like the great apes etc are sentient, I well remember once sitting on one side of the glass in the gorilla enclosure at Melbourne zoo with one of the gorillas on the other side.  we had quite a conversation in a way.  I definitely got the feeling that there was someone looking back at me, that there was an intelligence there.

However, this only makes me wonder all the more whether we have a duty to help these fellow creatures to progress beyond their current limited level of sapience.  I also wonder about what might happen if we do manage to produce a true artificial intelligence.  To me the two concepts are inextricable linked.  If we are to embark on these projects we need to develop a concept of "sapient rights" or some such idea.  I guess the thing I am doing here is doodling with some ideas about where we might go in the future.  The thing is, I think that the implications of these projects are so great that we cannot afford to wait until the reality to begin to think about the moral consequences.

Yes, I agree, we as humans need to grow up a bit before we are ready to act as the sponsors for new forms of full intelligence.  I do worry about how we act amongst ourselves, so many people do judge others by the colour of their skin, or the shape of their facial features etc.  I know that my parents brough me up with a better view of other people than they themselves have - I am more imprinted with their ideals than their actual feelings.  I cringe at times when I hear my mother speak about aboriginal people, yet I can understand knowing her background why she thinks like she does.  Yet I can still feel myself at times when I see someone of another race doing something stupid blaming it on their ethnicity. Then I realise what I have thought and to myself and I feel ashamed, for I know it is not true.  It is very similar to what is often called in the military the "garrison town effect".  When a military establishment exists near a town, the locals often blame the military personnel for all the trouble in the town and they automatically think that all the soldiers (sailors or airmen) are troublemaker.  This is easy to understand when you realise that these people are easily identified (short hair etc) and that amongst any large enough group of people there will be a few trouble makers.  When those few from the easily identified group do their thing and make arses of themselves, the casual onlooker makes the "obvious" connection between that characteristic (soldoer) and the bad behaviour and then generalises that to the entire class of people.  This is I'm sure, the cause of much racism.

Our brains are very good at making connections based on very little evidence.   This is an excellent survival trait for an animal living on its wits in a hostile environment, especially one that is not armed with sharp claws, big teeth and prodigious strength.  One in fact just like our ancestors on the plains of Africa.  Unfortunately this ability to make such quantum leaps in association can give false positives.  This is the cause of the misidentification of a link between something we do not like and an (in reality) unrelated trait such a skin colour, or whether a person comes from the military base outside our town.  This is then natural function of our brains, but it is when we allow ourselves to believe this automatic connection that we give rise to prejudice.  I believe I am better at combating this than my parents and I hope my children are better than I am.  Indeed I think they may well be for they had something as a child that I did not, exposure to people of different ethnic background to themselves.  I recently went to lunch with my son and a bunch of his mates from University.  They were a very mixed bag ethnically, but they were all laughing and joking together like any bunch of young people.  I see this as a sign of hope for the future.

So I agree we need to work on improving ourselves, but I also believe we can do it.  When the time comes and we do have apes we can converse with, or truly intelligent machines, or maybe even little green men from a star far far away, perhaps we can make a better fist of it than we have amongst ourselves.

Sibling Bluenose