Simulated reality

[Sarevok]

I was watching the first Matrix film other day and had a thought. Suppose you built a matrix like simulation with capacity to simulate an Earth sized world. You control this in god mode ala Sim City games with cheat codes. It can be any type of place. An ancient world like Earth circa 200 BC or modern era or even Coruscant. You can "live" in this city if you wish (via possesing a simulated citizen) or simply stick around as an all powerful "admin".

What type of world do you create ? Do you dick around your simulated world like a 13 year old playing Sim Life or Black and White or do you treat your "sims" with respect ? If you choose to live in your simulation do you make yourself some uber powerful character or merely try to experience life as different normal people ? Do you tell the simulated people the truth of their existence ?

[Simplicius]

Is this a Matrix-like VR sim for flesh-and-blood people, or are its denizens wholly a part of the simulation?

If the latter, it raises the question of whether it is ethically incumbent upon you, the admin, to treat your subjects well if they are only simulated sentience within a larger, non-sentient program. Does an accurate simulation of sentience require the same ethical considerations as actual real-world sentience? If so, you can't so much as turn your simulation off without committing mass murder, which is a bit of a problem for you.

[Ryushikaze]

Unless you can 'savestate' your sim, which simply raises even further ethical considerations regarding your sapient programs.

[Oskuro]

Ethical considerations aside.... I'd bet it would be a WoW killer

Oh well, i've fantasized about the same thing quite often. If those simulations were possible, the whole entertainment industry would change. For example, why make an Star Wras movie when you can have people play in such an inmersive simulation? Just script the action scenes/plot, and there you have it!

I would personally try to build something creative, maybe a surrealistic dreamland, or one of my fiction worlds, just to live in my own fantasies... wich would invariably lead to some sort of harem-world where I cram duplicates of girls I like, and script as many sexual fantasies as I can come up with

... yes, the entertainment industry would be changed indeed.

[Venator]

If they're actual people in the simulation, I'd be a responsible overlord.

If they're sapient programs and there's no "save" button, likewise.

If I could reboot or "load last checkpoint"... I'd have a bit more fun .

[Starglider]

Does an accurate simulation of sentience require the same ethical considerations as actual real-world sentience?

This depends on what you mean by 'accurate simulation'. I am quite sure that an advanced general AI can simulate any number of human-like beings without actually creating 'people', in the same way that a human actor plays a character without creating a new person. However a stand-alone entity capable of reasoning and reacting like a human will be morally equivalent under any sane ethical scheme, as the only functional difference is the kind of I/O channels the entity has.

If they're sapient programs and there's no "save" button, likewise.

There would be no sane reason to omitt such a thing.

If I could reboot or "load last checkpoint"... I'd have a bit more fun Twisted Evil.

Presumably you're ok with date rape then, if inflicting pain is fine as long as someone doesn't remember it later.

Unless you can 'savestate' your sim, which simply raises even further ethical considerations regarding your sapient programs.

Not really. It's just that in the digital domain, it's blatantly obvious that restore-from-backup is the equivalent of amnesia rather than death, whereas with biological humans there's enough perceived fuzziness that people whine about 'continuity of consciousness' and similar nonsense endlessly.

[Starglider]

Presumably you're ok with date rape then, if inflicting pain is fine as long as someone doesn't remember it later.

Should read 'date rape drugs'. Or any other sort of torture with long-term memory blockers in place.

[Molyneux]

Assuming that it is possible to do in this simulation:

Complete personal control over appearance and functionality of the avatar, except where that would infringe upon other user/characters. Flight for everyone. "Ghost mode" at will. No disease.

No damage to physical bodies, except for pre-determined (and clearly marked) zones where people can engage in whatever fighting-type simulations they want - anything from wrestling up to full, blood-guts-and-offal battle. Disable flight and ghost mode in those regions as appropriate (not very fair in a Roman gladiator arena scenario to let people become intangible at will, is it?)

Oh, and no permanent death.

[petesampras]

Not really. It's just that in the digital domain, it's blatantly obvious that restore-from-backup is the equivalent of amnesia rather than death, whereas with biological humans there's enough perceived fuzziness that people whine about 'continuity of consciousness' and similar nonsense endlessly.

I think it is good, for both sides of the debate, to consider the 'failure of imagination' in such situations. Human level AI and artificial reality are atill far removed from what we currently have. None of us have thus experience with anything like the things we are discussing and, given such things have undoubtedly upsurpassed complexity, we should be warying of expressing certainties.

Is a perfect copy of you actually you? Well, it's an interesting philosophical question, but none of us have any actual experience of what perfect copies of people are like. Yet both sides, and I'm as guilty as anyone, state their opinions on this matter like it was a certain as gravity.

Of course, we have logic and extrapolation. And they can tell us a lot. But there is a limit to how confident we can be, without any real evidence/experience of such a hugely complex phenomena as human conciousness and identity.

[Starglider]

And they can tell us a lot. But there is a limit to how confident we can be, without any real evidence/experience of such a hugely complex phenomena as human conciousness and identity.

Evidence, used scientifically, is of course valuable (though with seed AI it's unfortunately difficult and dangerous to gather even given the availability of the prerequisite software technology).

'Experience', not so much. In cognitive science, subjective experience is frequently worse than useless, due to the huge intrinsic biases involved in both reflection and perception of external agents. Even at our current limited level of sophistication the 'Eliza Effect' plays a major part in designing any AI systems that are supposed to interact with untrained humans, and there's a lot of lamenting about it in the literature (e.g. the hordes of AI academics slamming the Loebner Prize).

[Venator]

If I could reboot or "load last checkpoint"... I'd have a bit more fun Twisted Evil.

Presumably you're ok with date rape then, if inflicting pain is fine as long as someone doesn't remember it later.

No, and I think that anyone who uses that justification for inflicting harm has screws loose.

I would count effectively rewinding time so it never happened to be in somewhat of a different category than amnesia or death. Of course, the philosophical question of which it leans towards and the morality therein is still a major one.

I should amend my statement, though, to say that I wouldn't turn the simulation into Grand Theft Auto if there were actual people involved rather than programs - hell, I probably couldn't bring myself to do it anyway.

Also, by "more fun" I meant some general mischief or prank-pulling. I don't consider sexual assault, mass murder, or the like to be be "amusing".

[Zixinus]

Ethical considerations aside.... I'd bet it would be a WoW killer

Oh well, i've fantasized about the same thing quite often. If those simulations were possible, the whole entertainment industry would change. For example, why make an Star Wras movie when you can have people play in such an inmersive simulation? Just script the action scenes/plot, and there you have it!

I would personally try to build something creative, maybe a surrealistic dreamland, or one of my fiction worlds, just to live in my own fantasies... wich would invariably lead to some sort of harem-world where I cram duplicates of girls I like, and script as many sexual fantasies as I can come up with

... yes, the entertainment industry would be changed indeed.

Considerations for the entertainment industry aside, I would do pretty much the same things.

That and such interface would make drama very much more interesting, especially writing. Things can get a whole lot more vivid if you actually see it happening. What better way to predict how your world will be like then to see it shape before your eyes, what better way to portray some characters then their life and death on your screen?

[Starglider]

I would count effectively rewinding time so it never happened to be in somewhat of a different category than amnesia or death.

There is no such thing as 'never happened'. That may actually be physically true if conservation of information holds (which it seems to), but even if it didn't, the lack of memory of an event does nothing to wash away the fact that suffering occurred and was experienced by someone.

Also, by "more fun" I meant some general mischief or prank-pulling. I don't consider sexual assault, mass murder, or the like to be be "amusing".

Simulations of mass murder are amusing, at least to millions of gamers around the world. Obviously it's critical to keep a very clear distinction between 'simulation' and 'reality'; currently that's pretty easy, as anything we can do electronically is a very pale shadow of physical reality, but things won't be so simple in the future. As with intelligence itself, you have to start looking at deep structure instead of what it happens to be built out of or whether there's a reset button.

[NecronLord]

I go goddamn insane, that's what I do.

I would probably try to resist the urge to make inhabitants for this world, but frankly, I know I'm not going to manage to resist that indefinately.

Initially, I'd probably make something not unlike Coruscant (or perhaps the replicator city-planet of Asuras in Stargate would be a better example; some bits of nature, and parks, left, but mostly city - in fact, I would give my 'people' mental and 'physical' abilities similar to those {person-to-person and person to 'machine' communications at will, nigh-on unkillable, eternally young, no disease or ailments, ability to ressurect one's self after physical destruction, and so on} as well, with perhaps a technology level more akin to the Culture or some such.) because frankly, beautiful though nature is, cities are civilisation.

I'd probably set a fairly important goal of any such creations as loyalty (to some small degree, and try to avoid anything even resembling irony in how it is interpreted) to me and my desires. Because frankly, these people are going to be smarter than me, and even if I can't be overcome in any way, I can be manipulated.

I'd certainly make sure such people knew the 'truth' of existance, and would make a point of ensuring that this is acceptable to them (this presupposes I've any control over thier mental goals, see above) and not something to cause distress.

After that; are you kidding? I party myself into insanity on this far superior world.

[Raven]

This reminds me of a story, the Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect.
Sans the actual reality warping, I'd allow each person to create their own simulated world, however they like. People would be able to create their own personalized utopias better than I ever could.

Unlike Prime Intellect, who is constrained by the 3 laws, I'd also allow people to actively modify their minds (IIRC, PI was forbidden from scanning or manipulating peoples brains). Additionally, people who are bored and want to "die" can (rather than being permanently destroyed) have their information saved in a suspended state.

Finally, I'd (Spoiler alert)
Set the whole thing up in a way that can't be Captain Kirked to death by a disgruntled sadomasochistic quasi-luddite survivorwoman

[hongi]

I always wondered what would happen when we created a near-perfect simulation of the real world, where we could get whatever we want. Would I ever leave? Quite disturbing thought.

Anyway, if I can change the settings, I'd lock myself out of certain administrative privileges, such as killing the inhabitants of this world, or sexually exploiting them.

For starters, since I'm a palaeontological fanatic, I'd recreate the prehistoric world and wander around in observer-mode. No CGI dinosaurs for me!