> doesn't let you remove coins from someones wallet it allows you to change which transaction history is considered the real one
Potato potahto.
“You’ve got it all wrong officer, I wasn’t talking money from his wallet, I was changing history such that the money was transferred to my wallet instead.”
If Advent of Code has taught me anything it’s that interval ranges can be really useful for this kind of thing. I mean at least twice in ten years. We just need to figure out how to coordinate individuals attempts to make it storage efficient.
Choosing red is choosing to survive knowing that there will always be people who choose blue, potentially an amount that would mean you don't survive if you didn't take explicit action against it.
They didn't cause the peril, but knowing that their choice is possibility, if I don't make a decision to protect myself now their decisions may then be the cause of my continued not-survival.
Lol. That one. I wish I had seen that before I began my PhD. It describes the anti-climactic and exhilarating feeling you have simultaneously at your thesis defense.
I'm not sure I'd agree that people in groups 1 and 2 aren't worth engaging with.
The interesting bit to do for both cases is look at the 'they talk like a human' and 'are obviously somehow special' parts, separate the ideas of language, intelligence (memory, fluidity, abstract reasoning), _aliveness_ (as a biological process) and finally ideas about metacognition and theory of mind, and see whether their idea of consciousness as a super-bundle of the above (which is how I assume a lot of default ideas about consciousness are) actually sticks, or whether it falls apart when beings can have a subset of those properties but not all.
Also, I nominate myself to be in the 'People who have thought about it and are becoming more doubtful that I myself am conscious, and the question might be moot.' group.
I'm curious about your doubting your own consciousness statement, given that "we humans are conscious" is pretty axiomic to its definition and one of the few pieces that most agree with.
If you're looking for one of the genuine angles on this:
Consciousness is horrendously under-defined, to the point some people go something like "you know, at this point I figure we'd be better off not having this word at all. "
You'd have to define those terms operationally first, somehow, before I could give you an honest reply. Most people can't -and those who do disagree- which suggests something structural.
I'd say it's still the owners, even if they don't explicitly say or if it's even consciously recognised. I doubt that the tool, put towards broadly positive uses that are considered beneficial and not harmful to individuals or society, would be seen in the same way.
Most fears of AI (in the 2026 sense of the term), and perhaps technology more broadly, are fears of capitalism, ownership, and control, and less about the capabilities of the thing itself.
Potato potahto.
“You’ve got it all wrong officer, I wasn’t talking money from his wallet, I was changing history such that the money was transferred to my wallet instead.”
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