Replication ethics.
Highlights • The effective emulation of humans in software is a speculative but not implausible future technology. • Decisions about whether to replicate the same human many times, or many humans once, are not straightforward. They require a view on whether diversity of replication is intrinsically...
| Publicado en: | Futures Vol. 107; pp. 89 - 98 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Elsevier B.V.
Mar2019
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=135013832&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 135013832 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00163287 FUL jtl: Futures issn: 00163287 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2019 vid: 107 pid: 467 pub: Elsevier B.V. artinfo: ui: 135013832 10.1016/j.futures.2019.01.001 ppf: 89 ppct: 9 formats: tig: atl: Replication ethics. aug: au: Kent, Adrian affil: Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations, DAMTP, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge, Wilberforce Road, Cambridge, CB3 0WA, UK Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, ON N2L 2Y5, Canada su: Decision making Utilitarianism Population policy ethics Biodiversity Parallel computers sug: subj: Decision making Utilitarianism Population policy ethics Biodiversity Parallel computers keyword: Brain emulation Diversity Population ethics Brain emulation Diversity Population ethics ab: Highlights • The effective emulation of humans in software is a speculative but not implausible future technology. • Decisions about whether to replicate the same human many times, or many humans once, are not straightforward. They require a view on whether diversity of replication is intrinsically valuable. • These questions provide a clean and intriguing thought experiment that illuminates a previously unconsidered aspect of population ethics, which is also relevant for more immediate ethical and policy questions. Abstract Suppose some future technology enables the same consciously experienced human life to be repeated, identically or nearly so, N times, in series or in parallel. Is this roughly N times as valuable as enabling the same life once, because each life has value and values are additive? Or is it of roughly equal value as enabling the life once, because only one life is enabled, albeit in a physically unusual way? Does it matter whether the lives are contemporaneous or successive? We argue that these questions highlight a hitherto neglected facet of population ethics that may become relevant in the not necessarily far distant future. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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