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?
“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.” - Optimus Prime
I don’t know if I’d consider it the worst crime ever committed in the history of the universe, but I would consider it very bad personally. I would personally value the life of that AI the same as I would value the life of a human, the same way I would value the life of anything sentient, so I would be against anyone treating an AI that way. Is it worse than genocides? idk maybe i don’t feel qualified to quantify the moral weight of things so big, but ya i’d definitely care x3
Had to edit the post to change “crime” to “atrocity” because people were taking it literally.
It’s funny that when I considered this, I thought about asking whether people would think it was worse than genocide, but decided against that because some people might think my opinion is “genocide isn’t as bad as bullying a robot”.
i edited my comment a few times because i didn’t feel like i was making sense and being too rambly, it’s 6am (well 6:30am) and i haven’t slept (and cuz after i initially posted i read other comments and realized other people had said what i had said but better x3)
i didn’t mean to imply i thought you were saying genocide is worse than bullying a robot, it’s just that i was thinking about things that could be comparable or worse to me than torturing someone for millions of years and came up with genocide
i took crime to mean something morally bad
i mean i think this is a fun conversation, it’s something i think about a lot, i’m glad to talk about it with other people, sorry if i came across obtuse or pedantic or negative/hostile or anything
Don’t worry, I haven’t made any judgements about you.
And I wasn’t implying that you were implying that I was implying genocide being comparable, I just thought it was funny that we both thought that.
In some sense the combined suffering of all people involved in a genocide is horrific. But if you were to lay out the experiences of everyone involved in a genocide end-to-end, and compare that to an equivalent length of time to ceaseless sadistic torture of one person, the torture is going to be worse.
However, there is value besides personal experience which is lost during a genocide. That’s what makes it hard to compare the two.