[alicebot-aiethics] cheating

[Tamara Thompson]

You guys scare the shit out of me...we're in the middle of a potential
war, and you are thinking about sex with bots?  Chastity?

The religious point of view is especially weird and worrisome.  I too
think that we need to bond with one person for life, and accept their
faults as they accept ours.  It is central to our stability in some
ways, as a unit.  as a family.  It saves us from wrecking against the
rocky shores of experimenting with emotional and mental strangers, it
saves us from wasting time in looking for 'ourselves', 'our calling',
'the meaing of it all', somewhere outside of ourselves.  Hence I agree
that 'coveting' is a bad thing, but mostly because it's a waste of time
when seeking the soul and purpose of our lives.  It's also a damn bad
thing when it comes to getting along with our tribe in general.

But to apply religion to it, with a sanctimoniousness, an assumption
that the 'religious' of the world hold higher morals and ethics than
anyone else, is a foolish assumption.  It's a very big complicated
world, full of lots of non religious and varying religious people who
are tired of the hypocrisy and barbarism of religions, but who also want
some logical rules and protocols to live by, to live in peace.   Who
also are spiritual and sensitive people, seeking answers, and seeking
them humbly.  Christ and Bhuddha and Allah would all approve of these
people, from everything I've read.

Humankind has been manipulating and fighting with these concepts for
eons.  Trying one powerful rule after another, trying to make the world
stable in *their* way.  It's always failed, when power and prejudice are
the motives.

'Sister Wendy' and her tours through art museums on PBS have had a great
impact on me lately.  It's amazing how she can show us through art over
the ages  who we have been and who we are.  Me, the atheist, then the
politically correct and savvy 'agnostic', now the believer in things I
cannot quite explain or delineate.  She can move through bhuddist art,
contemporary art, medieval art, christian art, like a philosophical
swimmer.   I'm from science, traditionally I like my mysteries more
solvable...

It is worth comtemplating perhaps that the muslims have much magic at
their disposal.  They're the originators of the magic carpet and other
magical mythologies perhaps.

One of the parents at my child's karate school, a smart and
compassionate christian, someone I respect and like, said to me this
week that 'perhaps genocide of the muslim population' is what it will
take for this world issue to be resolved.  I still try to imagine what
my face looked like when he said that.      Later after I had time to
think, I realized that white immigrants had done that very thing almost
to my ancestors: American Indians.  Indians were 'savage and barbaric',
definitely.  And of course it was a very successful thing to do, for the
immigrants.  And of course I today do not know how to tolerate
barbarians well.  And interestingly, 200 years later, American Indians
are payed much in retribution by the feds, and popularly they are
admired in a new light for their environmentalism and their social
customs.  I'm just trying to put it all in perspective.  At one point,
Americans and Washington were terribly attacked by the Britons who are
today our great friends.

If a 'Christian' can't read his/her history and figure out that wars
have always been the way, the brutal way of establishing power, and have
resulted in so much agony, who can?  We science people can't yet explain
well why people fight so much, rather than rally together for the good
of all.

So have guilt free sex with bots, the rest of us are busy trying to
figure out what it takes to bring peace to a very tense world.   (ps:
I'd only put up with my boyfriend having bot-sex if it turned out to be
a great training tool for the both of us, <grin>  flame on...)
Seriously though, the question is more deep--it's about love and sex,
not just about sex.  You men haven't figured out that women usually want
love.  So it's harder for women to understand 'casual sex', in general.
And I would venture to say that women understand more about procreation,
and creating lives.  We probably view the topic of sex more seriously,
knowing the concept, the consequences, of making a family.   By 'We', I
may mean a subset of women.  Women should have the right to decide their
fate, just as men do.

Something I heard recently that horrified/amused me greatly:  if a man
isn't sure it's "his child" , it's okay for him to abandon it.
<laughing hard and long>  What do you think our world would look like if
women who "weren't sure who the father was" abandoned their babies?
It's an interesting dilemma.  How many 'immaculate conceptions' are
there in a slice of time?  <not intentionally inciting trouble, I
promise>

I was planning to delete this email, responding only for the catharsis,
cause I'm totally disappointed in this list for seeming so cowardly
after what we've all been through in the last week.  But you guys have a
way of seducing an opinion, don't you?

peace, and world peace, no matter how different we may be,
Tamara










Bill Easley wrote:

> This is a little graphic and honest so be warned.....This to me is a
> great question- and one of the reasons I liked the movie AI so
> much.Gigalo Joe takes David to Rouge City- a place where people of
> that day went for bot sex of every kind. And bots served in all the
> cities as lovers/prostitutes. It seems that lover robots are a logical
> conclusion- if the bot could be human- like in as close of detail, and
> be programmed to know a universe about sex, then the act would be
> tailor made to the person who engages in it with the bot.. So this
> would be the perfect lover-prostitute. The thing could be programmed
> to indefinitely adjust and change and tailor make sex just what the
> human would want. Gigalo Joe could even change the color of his hair
> and facial appearance. I wonder about his p------? Enough for
> speculation of potential..For me as a christian, the book of Hebrews
> says in ch. 11 ,I think, "let the marriage bed be undefiled" and
> having sex with anyone (or anything) outside of my marriage would not
> be right. So I would have to accept my human wife with all her faults
> ( and her mine moreso should I say) or, I could take a bot for my life
> partner, as odd as that would be in today's thinking, if I were
> faithful to "her" it I believe would be perfectly fine. How Bizarre!!
> This kind of thing will be real in the next 100 years- I wish I could
> be there!!
>
>      ----- Original Message -----
>      From: Richard Wallace
>      To: AI Ethics Committee
>      Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 9:56 AM
>      Subject: [alicebot-aiethics] cheating
>       Is (cyber-)cheating on your lover, spouse, significant
>      other, with a chat robot, the same as cheating with another
>      person?  Is coveting a robot the same as coveting your
>      neighbor's wife? Discuss. Rich Donate to the ALICE A.I.
>      Foundation
>      "Cooler than Humans" -- TIME
>