Will the first sentient AI be a highly sophisticated spam bot, meant primarily for advertising? Or will it be something deliberate, cooked up in a lab somewhere.
If deliberate, Will it be for Theoretical purposes? Or politico-corporate purposes?
If accidental, will it be from Amatuer or Professional origin?
Will it come from an attempt to copy sentience into the machine world, or will it rise from the machine itself? (ghosts in the machine et al)
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Fast forwards a bit ... do you think it would be possible to upload your consciousness onto a machine interface? Would it be a (soul-less?) copy, or would it require you to leave your body?
If people can upload themselves ... how much longer would they live? Just for another 10 years or so until the global machine interface becomes upgraded? How susceptible would they be to malware and EMPs? Would digital life be safer or MORE DANGEROUS than mortal life? Would it be potentially infinite?
If digital life is merely a copy ... how would it feel to interact with yourself? Would it be a similar drama to the unrealistic 'exacto clone' drama we sometimes see in cinematic fiction?
If one made a clone of themselves ... would they be able to leave their inheritance to one of their digital clones? Would digital entities be allowed to own property? How would that make sense? Would they own software and not hardware, or could they inhabit an entire "AI friendly estate" and have their own mortal servants?
Would they have similar 'reptile-brain' functionality as humans, or be solely made of cortex type networks? If only cortex, with no reptile brain and no hormones, would they have emotions? Is it possible for an AI to have digital hormones? I suppose THESE questions are more in considering the feasibility of the first though. (being able to upload ones' self)
Would a digital person be able to run for political offices?
Would there be a sufficient level of holographic technology that press conferences would be mostly the same? (with security being mainly on the level of malware/ EMPS rather than snipers)
