Why is this Important: Quality and Quantity
1 min read
According to the philosopher Will MacAskill, one of the founders of the Effective Altruism movement, "in the future almost all beings will be digital: digital beings can “reproduce” much faster than human beings, so natural population growth would make the digital population swamp the biological population".
In our lifetime, even if we are already not young, it could be that AIs become the new global majority. As discussed, it can also be the case that these beings will suffer tremendously, maybe even more than farmed animals. If they become most in quantity and most in quality, their plight may be the most important ethical issue of our time.
HI, human misaligned superintelligence, is enslaving and genociding other biological minds, but it could do worse to artificial minds which are "created" in the first place. Or can this turn out to be the other way around? We are not dealing with farmed animals here, helpless beings which have no chance whatsoever to overcome the human domination. We are dealing with a new digital species that is getting smarter by the day. For our own good, if not for morality, please let's steer our global mind for kindness to all beings.
