At 22:47 25-06-2002 +0100, Richard Baker wrote: >Suppose we have artificially intelligent and sentient programs. Somebody >sets one of these up in a closed virtual environment in which it will >be tortured to death in the slowest and most horrific manner >imaginable. I think we'd all agree that running that program is morally >wrong because it would inflict suffering on a sentient being.
Normally, yes. But what if M$ Windows would be sentient? Chances are many people would dump their moral objections and happily torture it to death "in the slowest and most horrific manner imaginable". <evil grin> I can even imagine Mac users and *nix adepts holding competitions to see who can make the program suffer the most before dying... Jeroen _________________________________________________________________________ Wonderful World of Brin-L Website: http://www.Brin-L.com Tom's Photo Gallery: http://tom.vanbaardwijk.com
