2008/9/18 David Hart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Linas Vepstas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: >> >> > >> > I agree that the topic is worth careful consideration. Sacrificing the >> > 'free as in freedom' aspect of AGPL-licensed OpenCog for reasons of >> > AGI safety and/or the prevention of abuse may indeed be necessary one >> > day. >> >> Err, ... but not legal. > > What do you mean? The SIAI and Novamente hold the copyright for OpenCog > code, and are perfectly within their legal rights to change the terms of the > license of SIAI-distributed source code. Of course changes cannot be > retroactively applied to source code already distributed,
That is what I meant. > license changes to be relevant in a software economy where anyone with > sufficient skills and influence could maintain a fork using the old license > terms. Exactly. If opencog were ever to reach the point of popularity where one might consider a change of licensing, it would also be the case that most of the interested parties would *not* be under SIAI control, and thus would almost surely fork the code. This is effectively designed into the license -- one cannot take away from the commons. >> Law is built on precedent, and the precedent is that works >> produced by software are copyrightable. If I write a book >> using an open-source word-processor, I can claim copyright >> to that book. >> >> If I press a button that causes an open-source AGI to write >> a book, (possibly based on a large collection of input data >> that I gave it) then I can claim ownership of the resulting work. > > > Original works produced by software as a tool where a human operator is > involved at some stage is a different case from original works produced by > software exclusively and entirely under its own direction. The latter has no > precedent. "Exclusively and entirely" is the Achilles heel. Do random number generators work "exclusively and entirely under their own direction"? They should, they are meant to. Yet if the random number generator is used to produce landscapes and and skin/fur texture for the latest Disney movie, its copyrighted. A computer software program, no matter how sophisticated, will initially be controlled by some human, and will execute on a machine that is owned or leased by someone. If the controlling interest is Disney, and its output is movies, they will be copyrightable, no matter how brilliantly sentient the machine may seem to be. > Claiming a copyright and successfully defending that claim are different > things. Disney is very adept at defending its copyrights. It bribed enough of the House and Senate to get new laws passed that will continue to keep Mickey proprietary indefinitely. If Disney happens to invest in/own some low-level, child-like AGI whose focus is to entertain legions of children (think Club Penguin, which Disney now owns, but the next step up from Club Penguin, with real AGI behind the characters, making interaction even more interesting) -- I will gaurantee that Disney will successfully defend the copyright. Anyone who runs around claiming that Disney has "enslaved some poor sentient AGI life forms and is making them lead abysmal lifestyles as glorified circus clowns for the entertainment of children" will be perceived as plain-old-nuts; any attempted lawsuit on such grounds would get instantly thrown out. > AGIs will likely need protection from other AGIs, and I expect they will > create AGI-society legal frameworks, Ah, well, in the hard-takeoff model, there is only one AGI that matters. There is no "society of AGI's" when one of them is a thousand times smarter than the others, any more than there is a society or legal framework between humans and chipmunks. >> I'm not worried about people enslaving AGI's; I'm worried >> about people being innocent bystanders, victimized >> by some sort of AGI shootout between the Chinese >> and American CIA -built AGI's (probably by means of >> some propaganda shootout, rather than a literal guns >> and bombs shootout. Modern warfare is also >> homesteading the noosphere) > > I believe that James's concerns cover both AGI mental torture (coercing or > tricking a conscious entity into behavior which is sociopathic or criminal > or otherwise immoral) as a heinous act in itself and also the 'crossfire' > concerns you raised. A very likely use (and a heinous one) would be to use primitive AGI to perform brainwashing/propaganda. It could start with little children and Disney (or the Chinese equivalent) and move on to Fox News. We have ample evidence that Fox, and many, many others, deployed a campaign of lies and deception to control the outcome of the 2000 and 2004 US Presidential elections. Most were too polite to call it propaganda (quick, don't think of an Elephant!) but that's what it was. I see no reason why such a "war for the hearts and minds" would ever stop: after all, we have yet to brainwash the Islamic billions into submission! I see AGI as a powerful weapon in this war, however immoral, sociopathic or heinous it might be. --linas ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=114414975-3c8e69 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
