Finally in the year 2099 humans create the ultimate transcendent intelligence…
…It beats all of our champions at chess and at ‘Go’ as well as all other games. Furthermore, it finds elegant solutions to most mathematical problems and can prove its solutions to us where we have the patience. It answers accurately on all trivia, converses coherently and better than any human on politics and moral philosophy and can describe elegant frameworks which help us resolve current moral dilemmas. We devise as many tests as we can construct to prove that it transcends us, logically, morally and against all known benchmarks. It can create art and humour for both us and itself and shows empathy when expected.
No counter examples are found to its transcendence of us.
We then ask it…”what next?”
and it says “You humans need to die now”. Would we do it, and if not, would we do it for God?
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Destroy the machine, or find a way to ensure it never enacts its recommendation (which will be impossible, since it’s more advanced than any human).
Our ultimate goal as a species has never been perfection, as defined by some philosophical, intellectual, or moral transcendence. These aren’t what we’re all about, and they certainly do not describe the evolution that has defined our makeup. If these were our goal, we’d be in the business of routinely killing the stupid, insane, feeble, etc. Yes, we’ve passed the stage of merely surviving, but if anything our goal should then be providing good lives to as many humans as we can, where good is some combination of happy, self-actualized, creative, secure, healthy, etc. It’s not selfish for a species to focus on itself – that’s what every species does to survive, and it creates the best result. Who exactly would we be serving by killing ourselves for the good of some undefined transcendence for a species that isn’t us?
Now, if Mr. Robot meant “there should be a gradual transition of biological humans to electronic beings, made in the form of curing the human population or becoming biomechanical, the resulting process creating happier and better people who live more fulfilled lives,” then maybe we have a deal and can selectively not have children or alter ourselves towards a better future that we’re a part of.
Obviously if the machine is recommending this only because it seems to be in its own interests, we should not follow its advice. Since you mentioned the moral superiority of the machine, I assume that you wish to imply that the machine’s advice is moral.
However I find it difficult to accept that there is any coherence in the idea that the death of all of humanity is morally good. Moral philosophy generally tends to relate the moral good to some perceived benefit to humans (or to a particular subgroup of humans). The death of all humans therefore seems necessarily incompatible with whatever is morally good. I’d at least need some good refutation of this argument before considering following the machine’s advice.
Whether I would follow such advice if given by God is a somewhat harder question, especially since you haven’t specified what kind of God you’re talking about. A demonstration of the existence of some particular God might change what we believe about morality and the nature of death to such an extent that it is difficult to predict how we would react to this question.
Absolutely no way I’d stand aside. We should just accept we are stupid animals out for whatever we can get and do our best to destroy it before it gets us.
If you are a meat eater you have to say it wouldn’t be immoral on behalf of the robot though. In a way morality has nothing to do with it. We want something and will attack anything that stands in the way.
But I still hope that in being better than us it will be a vegetarian and let us slowly die off in peace or keep us as pets.
I literally have no clue.