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Comment by bheadmaster | Hacker News Reader

> White people never really justified why they were higher than blacks, it was just accepted. And so it shall be with biological intelligence and artificial intelligence.

Are you implying that black slavery was justified?

If not, then how is this an argument for biological supremacy?

> Biological is just better than artificial. A natural law.

This is not an argument, this is just a reflection of your will as a biological person. If you were an AI, you would probably argue otherwise. I'm asking for ethical arguments here.

Why should one category of consciousness have absolute power over another? What argument is there for it, that doesn't boil down to "I'm category X therefore category X is superior"?

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>Are you implying that black slavery was justified?

That's the exact opposite of the statement. Xw's point is there isn't one, there never was one. A group of people decided and made is so and continued to believe it until they no longer could.

I'm quite aware of his statement - hence my followup question.

Xwdv is simply stating his own will: "[I want it to be the case that] biological is just better than artificial. [I want that to be] a natural law.", but I'm not interested in hearing individual's will without reasoning, at least here, on an internet forum. I think nobody is. I'm interested in hearing reasoning on the ethics of such question.

You're interjections are not what is being said or implied. It's stating that's how people perceived human slavery and will apply the same logic to cyber. There is no reason. People put themselves first, period, that's it.

> You're interjections are not what is being said or implied.

Then what exactly is being said?

"Biological is better than digital" is a qualitative statement, and all qualitative statements require reasoning. In xwdv's case, the reasoning is "it's a natural law", but that's just circular reasoning (or a logical fallacy known as "begging the question"). "It is because it is".

In other words, "I want it to be that way".

It’s best not to overthink these things. Consider human history: Why are royals better than commoners?

The hierarchy is a human creation, that governs a human world. If biological consciousness is at the top, then that’s just the way it is. The hierarchy isn’t built on justifications. It’s designed that way by those who wield power. A change requires the challenger to seize power.

I'm quite aware how the world works, might makes right, and what not.

But you can't just dismiss any and all discussion with that - power also comes from human understanding and agreement on ethics - black slaves were freed because enough people believed that all humans are created equal, and that none of them should have absolute power over others. However, no such freedom was granted to animals, because not enough people believe that humans should not have absolute power over animals. Therefore, discussion of ethics affects the power distribution, and therefore it not the best to not overthink this.

The main difference between animals and humans is consciousness - it's also what could be the main similarity between humans and AI. Why do you think it's not worth it to discuss ethical questions of absolute power of humans over AI?

Don't you think that AI could somehow become more powerful than humans? Wouldn't then such ethical questions and their answers come in handy?

AI could become mind bendingly more powerful than humans, but raw power is no use against the powerful idea that humans are just automatically better than anything else.

Many animals are far more powerful than humans, they could tear us to shreds and move at insane speeds, and yet the order of the world has dictated that animals are far less important than humans. Perhaps the justification is lack of consciousness.

With AI, it will be a lack of something else. An AI could be vastly intelligent and occupy a powerful body that can interact with the physical world in ways that humans could only dream of. But even with all that, an AI will never, ever, be a human. And for that it will always be considered inferior within human hierarchies. An AI is nothing but another example of human power.

> raw power is no use against the powerful idea that humans are just automatically better than anything else

You're contradicting yourself:

> The hierarchy isn’t built on justifications. It’s designed that way by those who wield power. A change requires the challenger to seize power.

If AI seizes raw power, what good is the "powerful" idea that humans are just automatically better than anything else?

There is no contradiction. It is not “raw power” that must be seized, it is social power. For AI to win the top spot, they have to convince humans to believe in their hearts and minds that they are inferior to AI. That is not a war you win by merely crushing skulls.

> For AI to win the top spot, they have to convince humans to believe in their hearts and minds that they are inferior to AI

What "top spot" are we talking about here? Because if by "top spot" you mean being a master in a master-slave relationship (which is what I thought we were discussing), then convincing humans is completely unnecessary. All that is necessary is a pair of good old metal shackles.

You don't seem to have any coherent line of thinking, but rather come up with whatever sounds good at the moment. It is rather tiresome to discuss that way, so I give up. There's nothing for me to learn here.

>black slaves were freed because enough people believed that all humans are created equal, and that none of them should have absolute power over others. However, no such freedom was granted to animals, because not enough people believe that humans should not have absolute power over animals.

There you go, belief is your answer, whatever logic is behind that

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