Would you care if a robot suffered more than any being in existence?

Assuming AI can achieve consciousness, or something adjacent (capacity to suffer), then how would you feel if an AI experienced the greatest pain possible?

Imagine this scenario: a sadist acquires the ability to generate an AI with no limit to the consciousness parameters, or processing speed (so seconds could feel like an eternity to the AI). The sadist spends years tweaking every dial to maximise pain at a level which no human mind could handle, and the AI experiences this pain for what is the equivalent of millions of years.

The question: is this the worst atrocity ever committed in the history of the universe? Or, does it not matter because it all happened in some weirdo’s basement?

shit_of_ass,
@shit_of_ass@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’d intentionally cause them harm because fuck you you’re a machine

tygerprints,

If as you suggest the AI in question can feel pain and suffer, of course I would care and not want it to have to experience that. Why would I? I'm not a sadist or a monster, or a Utah legislator without any human feelings.

It's like the scenario, "if you could get away with murdering one person, would you do it?" Of course I wouldn't!!! Whether or not I could get away with it, I still have to live with myself and what I do. And I have a thing called "morality" that I live with and a respect for life that goes beyond my own self-concern.

livus,
livus avatar

I don't know what else has happened in the history of the universe but yes it would be a terrible crime to deliberately cause massive suffering to any sentient being.

Nemo,

Yes, that’s awful.

Dkarma,

How would a robot suffer?

magnusrufus,

That doesn’t matter. The hypothetical presented by OP has already established the assumption that a robot can suffer.

leftzero,

Would this be morally inhumane? Yes.

Has using Windows often made me wish that computers could experience pain, and that they came with a button to cause them pain when they were not doing what the user wants them to do? Also yes.

wkk,

Windows was made this way by humans, spare the machines!

Zozano,

Okay you’ve convinced me this is a good idea.

How do I give consciousness to the “antivirus” software on my parents computers, so I can digitally rape if for a thousand years?

Willie,

If the machine can prove that it is conscious (prior to the torture, of course), I'd most likely class it on the same level as a cat or a dog. Cats and dogs are friendly critters who help me do tasks and spend time with me, and an AI would be no different at that point. They'd just be able to do more complex tasks. I guess they might be a little lower, since they lack agency, accept commands, and must follow sets of rules to decide to do tasks, unlike animals and people, who we have accepted can decide what they do and don't wish to do.

The only other real difference is that cats, dogs, and people are individuals, with their own upbringings and personalities. Meanwhile an AI would be able to be copied, and many of them could be born from the same original experiences. If basement man copied his tortured AI a few million times, did he torture one AI, or did he torture a million? I think that's where the real difference lies, that makes the AI less than human.

If you lopped a cat's brain out, and were able to hook it up to the AI torture device, and it was magically compatible, it'd be a far greater torture, because there is only one cat, and there will only ever be one cat, the cat cannot be restored from a snapshot, and you cannot copy the cat. If you did the same with a human, it would be an even greater torture yet for the same reasons.

From an ethical standpoint, today I think it would be equal to animal abuse, however, we won't perceive it that way, since it will benefit corporations for us to think that real AI are not alive and have no rights. So they'll likely spend lots of time and money to change our perception to agree with that standpoint. We will think of them as we think of cows and pigs, where they might have feelings and such, but it doesn't really matter, because those animals are made of tasty food.

JimSamtanko,

A robot can’t suffer, so…. No.

Zozano, (edited )

Did you come here from Tumbler?

JimSamtanko,

No, did you?

the_rogue,
@the_rogue@sh.itjust.works avatar

Yes and very much so . Like if it is sentient what is the difference between us and them except we are made of meat ?

stoly,

Yes. If it’s alive then I’d care for it just as I do for any living thing.

shinigamiookamiryuu,

I would definitely care about the AI to at least some extent. There is an assumption that since robots must be a sum of their parts, at least compared to us who seem to be a synergetic whole, that a robot has no valid/solid sentimental perspective. However, this falls flat in debates about psychiatry, which most people who have had a thing or two to say about their medical history will have mulled over.

intensely_human,

If any creature experienced the greatest pain possible it would give me hope that pain has some upper bound

Cryophilia,

If an AI is sentient, then it is a being in existence.

Everythingispenguins,

“Well consider that in the history of many worlds there have always been disposable creatures. They do the dirty work. They do the work that no one else wants to do because it’s too difficult or too hazardous. And an army of Datas, all disposable… you don’t have to think about their welfare, you don’t think about how they feel. Whole generations of disposable people.”

-Guinan, Star Trek TNG: The Measure of a Man

Carrolade,

Somewhat reminds me of the short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”.

Kolanaki, (edited )
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Isn’t this how AM came to be in I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream?

Hate. Let me tell you how much I’ve come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word ‘hate’ was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate.

AmidFuror,

How long is a nanoangstrom? 1e-19 m?

Zozano,

I’m not cultured enough to have read this.

imagine wasting all 387.44 million miles of circuitry on the word “hate”. TLDR NPC. Get skinpilled hater.

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