Posted by Kenneth Anderson:
Scott Adams's Big Plan, or, Killer Moon:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_09_13-2009_09_19.shtml#1252972775
From the [1]Scott Adams blog at the Dilbert site. I'm very, very
surprised Glenn Reynolds hasn't already linked to it. Very, very, very
surprised - moon, robots, digitized brains, asteroid collision, end of
the world, hot robot wife? It (verily) cries out, Glenn Reynolds!
Glenn Reynolds! Consider:
Perhaps you think you would miss being human, but that's a
subroutine we'd leave out of the robot mind. You would be designed
for happiness. And I'm not talking about ordinary happiness. I'm
talking about the kind that makes you scream and curl your robot
toes. It will be a happy robot planet.
Although it probably counts as Too Much Information, I often find
myself reading myself to sleep with old Dilbert collections. I used to
read philosophy, then economics, but now ... Dilbert. However. The
first paragraph and its last two sentences particularly amused me
enough that I'm thinking of using them as a pop quiz in corporate
finance class, something like, "Consider ways in which this paragraph
might be taken as an ironic commentary on efficient market theory in
the really strong, Panglossian-necessitarian sense (I made that term
up, slightly ironically, so no need to comment on it in the comments)
- or might not. Discuss." Which, dear readers, I leave to you in the
comments. Would the [2]Great Greg Mankiw have thought of that for his
freshman seminar?
Lately I have been looking at the moon and wondering if it will
someday kill me. If I live another 50 years (which is entirely
possible) I assume I will eventually be a robot, having shed my old
skin and bones body and uploaded a scanned and digitized version of
my brain to a machine. My fellow robots and I will live among the
meat people for eons until the moon's orbit degrades, either
gradually or because a meteor gives it a nudge, and Earth is
annihilated in the collision. You might say I worry too much. But
I've successfully avoided death so far, so I say I worry just
enough.
Because of this impending moon problem I have been planning an exit
strategy. By the time the moon starts heading our way I imagine
we'll have the technology to send me into space in an escape
rocket, searching for a habitable planet. I could power down my
robot brain so the trip isn't so boring.
But even if this plan works it will be lonely when I find my new
planet. And then there is the issue of the 400 billion meat people
and fellow robots I leave behind, including my hot robot wife,
Shelly, and the rest of my robot family. I want a solution for them
too. Sure, I could reprogram my brain to not care, but that's not
how I roll.
Unfortunately, I assume there would be no practical way to build
and launch enough rockets for everyone to escape, at least not in
time. So sending the entire population of Earth to the new planet
isn't going to work.
We need a better plan than that, and it goes like this ...
References
1. http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/killer_moon/
2. http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/08/impossible-task.html
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