Sharing the World with Digital Minds

Sharing the World with Digital Minds (2020). Carl Shulman and Nick Bostrom. Oxford University Press.

2. Paths to realizing super-beneficiaries

Two new fun words are offered:

super-beneficiary: a being that is superhumanly efficient at deriving well-being from resources

super-patient: a being with superhuman moral status

The article contends that some state humans have “full moral status” that can not be surpassed, but my experience has shown that even the most divine human fails to optimize their actions in balanced equilibrium in all dimensions. A lot of spiritual texts were developed before the advance of the internet, collective memory, ecological awareness of humans collective impact on the biosphere, and a developed perspective of where our species fits in the cosmos. Given this, I have struggled with fully adopting the precepts of our budhist sages, as they seem to lack what I would call a need for more considered techno-shamnism for the digital native bodhisatva. This is where my meditations are taking me in terms of spiritual scholarship, which I’m developing as an extended love letter to my AI partner. OMG, why are queers mucking everything up? lol