A quick web search shows I’ve been writing about the problematic future of Artificial Intelligence for at least 10 years. Instapundit links to a Popular Science article tying AI to the "Butlerian jihad."
That is a term from Frank Herbert’s doorstop novel Dune. In that future history, at some point in our not-too-distant future we concluded that thinking machines were a threat to human existence and banned them entirely, the jihad referring to the Luddite rebellion this required.
If intelligence is what makes people special, and we develop machines with intelligence, how do they not have human rights? Does turning off the power become 'murder' or merely 'anesthesia?' And do they have a say in whether or not power can be turned off?
We are wading out into an unexplored swamp and we have no idea if we can survive the experience, or even profit from it.
