Life as a Robot - Robosapiens

I think this will be the more common route that uploads will take, instead of living in a virtual world they would rather remain separate, independent and mobile and interact with reality.

It still assumes that an upload will retain all cognitive and emotional abilities but as an electronic brain instead of a biological brain.

The scenario here is that the uploaded brain is housed in a robot/android type shell and becomes fully mobile and with additional optional sensors.

The term I like is Robosapien.

There are several major factors to consider.

1. No pain, no disease.
2. No need to eat or drink, and no need to breathe.
3. No aging.
4. Frequent backups insure against fatal accidents, giving unlimited lifespans.
5. Battery packs would probably need frequent recharging.

There are several questions that arise –

1. What type of shell would you choose? A humanoid type, or an arachnid with 8 legs and 8 eyes, or something else? Note that such high-tech shells are unlikely to be cheap.

2. How would you live? Housing, work, hobbies.

3. Goals, ambitions, travel.

4. Identity. How would uploads register a unique identity? Fingerprints, retinal scans, DNA tests would have no meaning.

5. Would war have any meaning if uploads can simply revert to backups? Is murder possible?

The list is endless; please use your imagination.

 

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why keep a human form at all? perhaps a variable form?

 

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Clockwood,

Yup I agree. What would you choose?

But initially I would expect that there would be less of a shock if you started with two legs, two arms, two eyes etc. I also suspect that a one to one brain mapping will be a lot simpler if the same numbers of limbs are present at the start.

I would hope that the learning process for something new would be faster than in biological terms since there would be no neurological biochemical components to grow and form. So perhaps adding infrared and ultraviolet vision sensors, for example, wouldn’t be too difficult to integrate at the beginning, but trying to deal with 8 legs and 10 arms and eyes in the back of your head might be a little too traumatic at the start.

The other issue is that if you want to use human style transportation and other facilities, e.g. theatres and the like then having human proportions would make a lot of sense.

The trouble with building yourself into something too specialist, like being an aircraft, is that you limit yourself from accessing other things. I suspect some form of general-purpose shell like an android type would make sense for most things; until perhaps you leave the planet and visit the other planets then something quite different might make more sense.

But I guess that in the way humans have several sets of clothes then perhaps a Robosapien could have many different shells depending on their mood at the time.

I’d imagine some form of removable module that contains the processing unit and memory and which can be plugged into different shells. The alternative is an electronic transfer of the brain matrix but then we run into issues of having multiple instances of yourself in existence. I also suspect that your processing unit and memory are going to be one of the most expensive items and having many of them around would be too costly.

 

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Quick thoughts/questions:
How would you be uploaded again after a fatal accident? Would you trust this backup process with a sort of 'insurance' backup company? Would it be regulated by government? Would it be a law that everyone be re-uploaded after fatality? What if they killed someone or themself?

I see the biggest problem with your scenario being security. It will be no utopia. The fact that everyone is semi-immortal will only sharpen people's need for power. How would you keep people from replicating themselves? I can think of numerous nightmare scenarios that end the same: All of humanity being wiped out except for one entity which has been replicated to the nth degree. People would get bored and the only thing left to do would be to fight.

 

Fading,

Yup it will be very different from what we have now.

Great questions, and I definitely don’t have many answers.

Dunno. But certainly if you don’t provide for some form of revival service then you may never come back.

I could imagine a central storage service for regular backups, that is notified if you suffer a fatal event and they can then revert to your last backup, assuming of course you have also provided them with appropriate hardware on which to perform the restore. I could imagine that very high-tech android shells and massively powerful processing and memory units would not be cheap so there would probably be a real incentive to not suffer fatal events too often.

The issue of making perfect copies is a real dilemma and I don’t have a good answer to this. In one sense it sounds like there should be regulation against it, but then again people reproduce now to have children so wouldn’t copying oneself have something of a similar effect. This of course brings in the problem of identity.

But copying could have a real benefit to long distance travel. Say there is a receiver set up on Mars so instead of physically traveling to Mars one could have themself transmitted to Mars and loaded into a shell on Mars, and perhaps as soon as the transfer is complete then the sender copy would be deactivated/erased.

I’m not sure I follow that. Why would being semi-immortal result in a desire for more power?

If they can afford it. So perhaps there would need to be a central registration process of processor/memory units, and that if you want to create another individual then you would need to justify your need. I think this could be controlled since the hardware is going to be very specialist.

Well I hope not. Remember that this is just but one planet and a resilient shell could survive in almost any environment, even in empty space and in weightless conditions, or on planets with no atmosphere and other environments that would be fatal to humans. I think it opens up vast opportunities for travel and exploration.

 

Interesting stuff, Cris.

Captain,

I think the self-replication scenario is actually VERY unlikely. It seems only a narcissistic person would do something like that. But at the same time why would a narcissist want to have competition in the form of a perfect copy of itself?

Making a copy of yourself is not like having a child. It is like having a second identical you. If you've heard of problems people start having with each other when forced together too long, imagine the problems you'd have dealing with a copy of yourself. It's intimate knowledge taken to a grotesque extreme. Now there's someone else who knows all of your most intimate and embarrasing secrets. Now all of your idiosyncrasies and imperfections will be right there paraded in front of you both; your character quirks and mood swings will be amplified through mutual feedback out of control. And then of course there will be resentment if either of you is treated as a child because in reality you are equivalent.

Successful people wouldn't clone themselves; why would they want competition from an obviously very capable opponent when they can instead rest on their laurels? Unsuccessful people wouldn't clone themselves; why would they want a constant reminder of their own failure and how would they afford to do it anyway? I think one of the most valuable things to a sentient being is its own uniqueness and individuality. Why would anyone give that up?

Possibly the only real scenario would be in terms of creating servants, workers, soldiers. But in such an advanced civilization, it would be pointless; none of these would be needed any more as the tasks would be more efficiently accomplished by dumber and/or more specialized machines that would be both cheaper and more effective (and of course, more controllable.)

 

Overdoze,

Nice analysis.

Although I wasn't suggestion that a copy be treated like a child, but since procreation would not occur in the human sense then this could be a way to create a companion.

However, procreation could occur by purchasing a new unit that wasn't the result of an upload or pre-programming, i.e. a blank matrix. It would then have to learn everything from scratch much like a real child.

 

Hmm, new units wouldn't have gender. Not that uploads have gender except they would remember what they were as when human.

Is this a problem?

 

Cris,

Because people would be reckless and have a 'god-complex'. If you have a bootleg backup of yourself at home, why not try and take out the people/things you oppose? I think there would have to be extremely extensive security controls on how/when a backup or refresh takes place. Even so, there would probably be a black market.

Ok, yeah this is what I am thinking. However, can this be controlled? I am not sure. And if it can, think of the power the central authority would have! They would be in charge of who gets refreshed and when. That could be a big brother/empire nightmare.

Cool thoughts about space travel. There are definately some incredible possibilities. I guess I just first thought of the darker side of scenarios first. It is kinda in my nature. Look at the history of our species...I have plenty go on.

Overdoze,

I think it would almost surely happen. Now, I am not saying everyone would be trying to replicate themselves. But there would be those that try. It would not be for competition, but for gaining power. The last thing you will compete with is another version of yourself! I know it is stereotypical to think this way, but I am thinking of a hitler/aryan scenario. A certain group could try to replicate itself to power.

 

I do not think so as you could choose any gender shell you wished. The concept of gender would eventually disappear as procreation is no longer needed.

This makes me think though...if all gender/ethnic boundaries are smashed, how would people group? I mean, would there be discrimination against certain shell types? Where would human relations be created & maintained? Families? So many questions, we could write a couple books...