Mass uplifting of animals, and the ethics thereof

[Junghalli]

This is an argument related to the concept of using transhuman/"Singularitan" technologies to improve the human condition that I'd be interested in seeing your opinions on.

Let's suppose a scenario in which we can, through technologies like superintelligent AI, Von Neumann machines, uploading, advanced biotech etc. potentially eliminate most involuntary human suffering. Let's also suppose that these technologies have advanced to the point where it would be possible to do things like totally re-engineer the biosphere, if we wished.

Given such a scenario, you could make (IMO) a pretty decent argument that we should extend the benefits of some of these technologies to other sentients (i.e. animals). If animals can and do suffer (and I'd say it looks pretty likely that some can) then it seems reasonable to think that we should alleviate their suffering, if it's easily in our power to do so and costs us basically nothing.

Now the argument I'm interested in is that this philanthropy should extend not simply to alleviating some of their suffering (say, by setting up a system where they get uploaded into some pleasant "afterlife" after death, or by re-engineering the biosphere), but to making them more intelligent. According to this argument it would be a good thing, if it is easily within our power, to upgrade them to the point where they're intelligent enough to make an informed choice for themselves, and then offer them the choice of being sent back to sub-sapience, left as they are, or further upgraded.

This seems to me to be a proposal of a somewhat different character to simply proposing to alleviate their suffering, because it seems to me that lack of intelligence in and of itself is not the same thing as suffering. It does not, in and of itself, cause pain. So, with that in mind, is there an ethical imperative to do this?

The idea that there is, to my mind, seems to come down to this argument. It is better that individuals should have choice over their condition than for them to be deprived of choice. A sentient that is too stupid to understand the choice available does not have a choice. Therefore, it is better to upgrade such an individual to the point where they are smart enough to make the choice.

The con argument, to my mind, comes down to stating that placing ethical value on the choice and desires of nonexistant hypothetical people is fallacious. We would be attaching ethical weight to the opinions and choices of hypothetical people who do not exist and will not exist without our active intervention. There is no reason to do so. This doesn't in and of itself mean that mass uplifting of animals would be a bad idea, but it would suggest that we should not feel any ethical obligation to do so, no matter how easy it would be for us.

What is your opinion of this question?

BTW in case you're wondering I didn't make the argument up myself, I distinctly remember reading it somewhere, although I can't remember where offhand (although I think it was somewhere on this board).

[adam_grif]

I don't see why one would want to engineer a cow to have human-level intelligence. If the purpose is to make more human-level intelligences, then what is the benefit of engineering a cow to have it instead of just having more human children? If the purpose is to ask the cows whether they like to be killed or not, then that's redundant because if you give them human level intelligence but leave everything else mostly in tact, of course they won't want to be killed for meat. If you deliberately engineer their self preservation instincts out, then you weren't giving them choice anyway.

If the purpose is to ask them whether or not they'd like to continue to be smart, then you may as well be engineering bacteria to the point of sentience and asking them too. I see no inherent ethical problem with not uplifting anything.

[Formless]

This seems to me to be a proposal of a somewhat different character to simply proposing to alleviate their suffering, because it seems to me that lack of intelligence in and of itself is not the same thing as suffering. It does not, in and of itself, cause pain. So, with that in mind, is there an ethical imperative to do this?

If anything, making them dumber would alleviate their suffering far more than making them intelligent. An intelligent being can comprehend things with far more clarity, and the psychological suffering that that comprehension causes is not necessarily something we would want to bestow on every living thing. On the other hand, an amoeba arguably cannot suffer at all because it lacks the computational ability to do so. Its literally too stupid to feel pain.

The idea that there is, to my mind, seems to come down to this argument. It is better that individuals should have choice over their condition than for them to be deprived of choice. A sentient that is too stupid to understand the choice available does not have a choice. Therefore, it is better to upgrade such an individual to the point where they are smart enough to make the choice.

Why waste the effort and resources? Most of our fellow animals are not so stupid that we cannot predict what their answer would most likely be-- they are biologically programmed to want to eat, fuck, and sleep. Its not that they have no choice, its that the choices of most animals are obviously going to be to want to go back to their original state of nature, if that is possible. You might find exceptions such as dolphins, elephants, apes, and so on which have more on their minds even in nature (these being the few animals that mourn the dead), but my cat is happy as long as I feed him every day and occasionally give him some attention. I don't see how this scheme would significantly increase the happiness of the world.

[Shroom Man 777]

No. Because upon seeing the myriad atrocities and the one hundred thousand million billion blasphorities that man has committed upon the countless species of the animal kingdom, these uplifted creatures will rise up in righteous retribution and their wrath against us will truly know no bounds - and we will be laid low, and like the lambs of old shall we be led to the slaughter by these angered animals in their revengeance against us and the sins of our ancestors. We will be doomed to endure unspeakable horrors at their hands and hooves, and in the end it will be our meats that shall be placed on their dinner tables for them to feed upon.

Um, yeah. If we give them human-level intelligence, then an animal apocalypse scenario is far more likely than any of those randome altarnate realties where the robots take over and kill us. Because, um, those animals are going to be pissed.

[Sarevok]

Yeah. Have none of us seen Planet of the Apes ? The danger is too great. If humans were treated like animals by advanced aliens and then uplifted to their tech level we would immediately start plotting revenge with our new found abilities. If animals could understand and think like humans they would do the same.

[Liberty]

Um, yeah. If we give them human-level intelligence, then an animal apocalypse scenario is far more likely than any of those randome altarnate realties where the robots take over and kill us. Because, um, those animals are going to be pissed.

Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing.

And somehow this topic made me think of the dogs in the movie Up. This scientist makes them collars that give them the ability to speak. And every five seconds they're like "Squirrel!" It's dumb, but that's what it made me think of...

[Shroom Man 777]

I was thinking more of that star-nosed mole from G Force.

[Surlethe]

Enough spam; back on topic.

[Starglider]

I don't think there is an ethical argument for breeding smarter animals to reduce suffering. It's a ridiculously complicated and rather ineffective way to do that, as others have noted.

Uplifting animals is a nice idea because it increases the overall diversity of Earth civilisation; we get a new point of view on things, new art, insights etc, and it generally just makes life more interesting. Of course, I am a neophile / xenophile, most humans have a strong fear of 'different', so we shouldn't really be doing this before we're a posthuman civilisation that has deleted racism etc from the genome.

I see no particular reason why uplifted animals would want to punish currently existing humans for cruelty to their distant genetic forebearers. That makes as much sense as treating people who are cruel to apes the same as people who are cruel to your parents.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I see no particular reason why uplifted animals would want to punish currently existing humans for cruelty to their distant genetic forebearers. That makes as much sense as treating people who are cruel to apes the same as people who are cruel to your parents.

In this case, they are the same thing. When we are advanced enough to do this, there will not be a biosphere either. The only animals we have left will be lifelong captives in artificial habitats inside conservatoria.

Me I would rather uplift the animals and have them become members of society, rather than chattel. Objects for human amusement.

[Buritot]

I would very much like to see animals uplifted, to a certain degree. We could make them slaves, or work drones, that would be nice, right?











...not.
But that's the biggest counterpoint which immediately tried to maul me. If we had the technological capabilities to uplift animals I don't say we shouldn't unless humankind had the necessary moral maturity to deal with all the babysteps in-between, before reaching human-level sapience.

As for the argument to uplift them to the point where they would be able to make an educated choice between further uplifting or downlifting them... I'm hard pressed to think they'd choose uniformly. Humans are loosely pack-based animals, and we value individuality as well as communality. There are both progress- and regress-oriented policies in use. I more than doubt the partially uplifted animals would chose either-or but more likely both.

PS: David Brin wrote some novels with viewpoints of uplifted animals, more information on his site.

[Solauren]

Until we have interstellar flight capabilities, uplifting animals is a stupid idea.

Then it will just become a 'needs to be carefully done' idea.

I'd have no problem in creating a race of uplifted bipedial dogs, cats, or whatever, once we can reach the stars. We can send them out to colonize planets, either themselves or beside us.

However, uplifting them now? Yeah, I can imagine they'd be so greatful for being awakened in a planet that is barely supporting the current sentient race, due to that races own actions. Even if we uplifted as babies (so the adults are not a factor), we'd still have to share the planet.

And we SUCK at sharing.

[Starglider]

Any practical 'uplift' process is actually 'you design a new organism based on the existing one' - for the cognitive design, it is 'based very loosely on the existing one'. Assuming sufficient designer competence, the mental characteristics of the new species are as much engineer fiat as they are based on the original creature (with some level of random emergent results, depending on how tolerant you are of deviation from spec). We could and should put in 'don't hurt humans' safeguards, as demonstrated by Florence in Freefall. Hopefully by the time we can do this some ethical oversight body will prevent the addition of compulsions to obey humans - though if you were going to make genetically engineered slaves, I would expect them to look like humans (as in Blade Runner) rather than furries. Easier to design and easier to market - though I guess looking nonhuman might allow the designers to evade some of the anti-slavery sentiment.

[Oskuro]

Creating a new set of creatures based on existing animals, as suggested above, might be the ticket, for two reasons:

a) In order to preserve the biosphere, you need regular animals. Suddenly granting human level intellingece to many of them would probably result in an ecological disaster, as said animals go beyond their biological niches and behaviours.

b) It would be cruel to grant human level intelligence to most animals. Imagine if you will that you are confined to a body with no arms, no hands, forced to eat grass for survival, not even able to stand upright to survey your surroundings. It'd be like creating wheel-chair bound people, with very limited physical capabilities. That would be contrary to the notion of lessening their suffering.

[Junghalli]

b) It would be cruel to grant human level intelligence to most animals. Imagine if you will that you are confined to a body with no arms, no hands, forced to eat grass for survival, not even able to stand upright to survey your surroundings. It'd be like creating wheel-chair bound people, with very limited physical capabilities. That would be contrary to the notion of lessening their suffering.

You could modify them to have manipulatory organs, or give them cybernetic ones. At any rate, I was thinking more of an "upload and upgrade" set-up initially.

[Singular Intellect]

How does one go about proposing artificial enhancements to organisms incapable of understanding such concepts in the first place? This is under the assumption no human gets enhancements unless they chose to do so.

If we assume that we're at the technological point where artificial enhancements are the default for all humans, including at birth (thus invalidating the choice concept), the argument garners more weight.

In that case it seems to become more of an issue of available resources and feasibility.

[Oskuro]

You could modify them to have manipulatory organs, or give them cybernetic ones.

Wich falls under the "create new types of creatures" category

[Zixinus]

My first question: why would you want to do such a thing?

You can make animals happy by keeping them in zoos or as pets. Pets usually live a far better life than their wild cousins do (if the owner is competent).

What would be the point of granting them intelligence? You would be setting up yourself for several clusterfucks worth of issues, even under more ideal conditions.

How can two biologically different species live together or relate to each other? How will they be able to do work, especially in such an technologically advanced world? What about the identity issues such creatures would have? Then we go on to legal issues, such hunting licences for carnivores (just to name one)? What about housing and standardization of everything, such as making labels these creatures could read and preserved foods that they can eat safely? Medical care? Education?
And that's not even starting on issues like how would this uplifting look like. How are you going to allow an uplifted-dolphin to manipulate things? Modifying their appendages and/or cybernetic augmentation?

As for intelligence: ignorance is bliss, especially if you are at the point where you don't even know what ignorance is (albeit I wonder whether this could apply to some Fox News commentators). They are not suffering simply because of the lack of it and I hardly see what moral imperative would there be if it is not humans that are causing any suffering they feel anyway.

And really, one could argue that by grafting intelligence upon them, we may actually make their lives worse rather then better. In the wild, animals do what they please. Grafted with intelligence, they suddenly see the universe in far greater detail and including that, is the realization that they were given intelligence for the amusement/whim of some other species (identity issues ahoy).

The only justification I can think of, aside amusement, is some esoteric practical reason. Having sentient dolphins allows us to do all sorts of nifty stuff underwater, for example. Or having intelligent elephants could be useful construction workers or something.

Thing is, that if we are talking about this level of technology, what's the point? Why not just create the appropriate vehicles or even go the other way around, and just change humans to accommodate whatever environment you please.

[RRoan]

You could modify them to have manipulatory organs, or give them cybernetic ones.

Which falls under the "create new types of creatures" category

And upgrading their brain (and the necessary support systems) doesn't?

[Oskuro]

^Well, of course, but in the context of my comment, I meant for a complete overhaul of the creature to grant it the same capabilities of a human sentience, and adding extra limbs is part of that notion.

I must say I would love it if we ever managed to create anthropomorphic animals as viable sentient species, it'd be a victory on many fronts, particularly on the scientifc and sociological front, because being able to accept a Tauren as an equal would mean we've really left all that racism nonsense behind.

[Buritot]

^Well, of course, but in the context of my comment, I meant for a complete overhaul of the creature to grant it the same capabilities of a human sentience, and adding extra limbs is part of that notion.

I must say I would love it if we ever managed to create anthropomorphic animals as viable sentient species, it'd be a victory on many fronts, particularly on the scientifc and sociological front, because being able to accept a Tauren as an equal would mean we've really left all that racism nonsense behind.

To summarize: You want furries.

I sincerely doubt that's the road we ought to take for that endeavour. Mind you, I can see the allure of humanoid animals - in a sense - but your results would be slightly different appearing humans. A muzzle here, a tail there, now add a bit of paws and voilà? I shudder at the thought of it. Now, if one wants a unique and not anthropomorphic perspective one has to apply the slightest of pressures to steer you candidates towards sapience and sentience. If you apply the metaphorical sledgehammer you probably get more broken and/or unhealthily humanized subject you can shake a stick at.

To draw an image:
You want intelligent bipedal humanoid furred four/five-fingered dog-descendants.
I want intelligent quadrupedal canine furred dog-descendants with somewhat manipulation-capable paws.

[FSTargetDrone]

I'd have no problem in creating a race of uplifted bipedial dogs, cats, or whatever, once we can reach the stars. We can send them out to colonize planets, either themselves or beside us.

Why would you want to try to change cats and dogs (or any other 4-legged animal) into bipedal animals? You're going to have to give them opposable thumbs too, right? Not to mention needing to engineer their forelegs to some degree for more flexibility. Seems like it would just be better to raise up other primates, if we were to go this route at all.

[Junghalli]

Why would you want to try to change cats and dogs (or any other 4-legged animal) into bipedal animals? You're going to have to give them opposable thumbs too, right? Not to mention needing to engineer their forelegs to some degree for more flexibility. Seems like it would just be better to raise up other primates, if we were to go this route at all.

You could always do both.

[Oskuro]

To summarize: You want furries.

Sure, why not, although anthropomorphisized turtles would be cool too.

I sincerely doubt that's the road we ought to take for that endeavour. Mind you, I can see the allure of humanoid animals - in a sense - but your results would be slightly different appearing humans. A muzzle here, a tail there, now add a bit of paws and voilà? I shudder at the thought of it.

What is it about slightly different humans that makes you shudder? If a creature is fully sentient does having a beak instead of a mouth make it less of a person?

Now, if one wants a unique and not anthropomorphic perspective one has to apply the slightest of pressures to steer you candidates towards sapience and sentience.

Why non-anthropomorphic? There's a reason why primates became tool users. My point is that if you want to uplift an animal species to our level, they not only need cognitive abilities, but the capability to perform as we do in object manipulation, and I see it'd had less of an impact to replicate what happened to us primates (going from quadrupedal to bipedal) rather than adding extra wacky limbs or similar nonsense.

To draw an image:
You want intelligent bipedal humanoid furred four/five-fingered dog-descendants.
I want intelligent quadrupedal canine furred dog-descendants with somewhat manipulation-capable paws.

Great, so you want to create a race of handicapped creatures that will be unable to perform at the same level as the rest of society. People have been looked down and despised for less (skin color). Take a look at the plight of handicapped people in our current society, would you really create a whole species that has to suffer those problems? Why uplift them at all then, if they'll become second-rate citizens, looking up from their quadrupedal posture at us tall-standing humans?

[Buritot]

Sure, why not, although anthropomorphisized turtles would be cool too.

Agreed. But I'm not for what is cool or convenient, but what would create a mostly unique species. If we go for humanoid, the point about originality gets compromised. It's not about what makes me shudder and what not (besides, there are good kinds of shudder ). I'm not talking about the Uncanny Valley, I couldn't care less for it if the uplifted species would be in its character and behaviour be left to its own devices.

Great, so you want to create a race of handicapped creatures that will be unable to perform at the same level as the rest of society. People have been looked down and despised for less (skin color). Take a look at the plight of handicapped people in our current society, would you really create a whole species that has to suffer those problems? Why uplift them at all then, if they'll become second-rate citizens, looking up from their quadrupedal posture at us tall-standing humans?

Since you're mentioning it, sure, why not. Fits nicely to my previous statement:

I would very much like to see animals uplifted, to a certain degree. We could make them slaves, or work drones, that would be nice, right?

...that's obviously not my intention. I simply trusted fitting environment would be a given based on the scenario. And since the scenario is kind of far future, simply due to the amount of generations you have to cycle through to get a decent specimen, I gathered there would be tools and accommodations befitting the species-in-making. Since, you know, there's a lot of free time on your hands in-between each generation.
Unless, of course, you're aiming for the Freefall-scenario, where species are created on a sufficiently regular scale to forego many trial and error approaches and mostly simulate until you have something stable and let that incubate in an artificial wombs and such.