[alicebot-aiethics] cheating

[Robby Garner]

Dang Tamra!

Don't get mad at us for just being guys ;-)  Sex is the biological
imperative makes us go, and in times of stress people have to take their
minds off the visceral images of the world. If you ever deploy a
chatterbot on the internet, you start reading the logs and find that
nearly 80% of what people say is about sex, and/or hateful. Some people
are utterly disgusting at times.

I liked Bill's idea about the sofa, sort of a compromise solution, but
sounds very beneficial in special ways.

I want to point out that we are at war with terrorism, not Islam, nor
religion. America, the great melting pot, is full of people from *all*
religions, from native american, to muslim, and yes, even Christians. 

I have friends who are Muslim, and they are wonderful patriotic
Americans who love this country as much as we do. One of my doctors is a
Muslim, and I never new that until about a year ago, and I've been
seeing him for 12 years! It just never came up, and I had no idea.

Muslims preserved the knowledge, art, and history of the civilized world
during the dark ages. Islam is a religion which supports the arts and
learning and understanding apparently. Do you know how they protected
the works of Plato, Thales, and others? They kept the Christians from
burning and destroying it.  Yep, that's right. In the dark ages (or one
of those ages) Christians decided it was evil to think for oneself, and
that since the Greeks had worshipped pagan gods, that all the Greeks
stuff was evil and should be destroyed. Sort of like how the Taliban
recently decided to destroy those huge ancient Buddha carvings in those
mountains. The Taliban destroyed something that by all rights belongs to
all of Afghanistan, if not all the world. But again, what they did has
nothing to do with Islam or Muslims. All Muslims are not the Taliban.
They are a subset of Muslims, and a small one at that.

I don't want to influence anybody's religious beliefs, but Islam is not
that different from Christianity, only differ in a few names and
technicalities.  If you could step back and compare the features
side-by-side, you'd see that Moses was still the son of Abraham, and
Moses married an ethiopian (a black chick), but God loved him anyway. In
fact, God loved Moses' black wife so much that I think he gave leperacy
to some evil bitch that was bad talking Moses' wife, so God said not to
mess with Moses' wife. I leave it to the bible scholars to flesh that
out a little bit, but my point is that we shouldn't quibble with other
religions' details and rituals, God has demonstrated that he loves all
of us. I don't remember reading any fine print that said "blacks,
muslims, and mexicans not included." We should study other religions,
because quite frankly, it helps us understand our own religion, and
that's what Jesus would do IMHO.

So, Bill help me here, somewhere in the gospels, Jesus says to his
disciples to spread the good news (where the term evangelism comes from)
and he said that if they go to a town and his message is not well
recieved, that the disciples should wipe the dust of that town from
their feet and move on, telling the good news to whoever will listen. If
I'm not mistaken, Jesus did not say "if they dont listen, talk louder,"
he also didn't say "if they don't believe as you do, condemn them, or
just beat them over the head until they submit."  I don't know where
that tendency came from.  I get enough from "love thy neighbor," and
"turn the other cheek" to kind of clue me in to Jesus' non-aggressive,
civil disobedience, kind of philosophy.  But none of us is perfect, so
it is sometimes hard to live up to what Jesus would do, or what Jesus
wants for us.

I think Jesus also said that he did not come to replace the laws of the
Jews. In fact Jesus was a Jew. He said so. He probably looked more like
Maxwell Klinger from MASH, than all those blonde haired, blue eyed,
pictures we see of him that look more like Dwayne Alman. 

Jesus' message was about love, compassion, faith, and understanding one
another.  He never negated any Jewish laws to my knowledge? Please
correct me (and I'm sure you will) if I've gotten this all wrong.

Please don't get mad at me for trying to understand the Bible myself. I
don't wish to offend anyone else, but I am a newcomer to religion, and I
am a lamb in this. But I believe God wants me to think for myself,
because he gave me that gift to use for him.

regards,

Robby.

Tamara Thompson wrote:
> 
> 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
> >
> 
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