The Prime Directive and the Turing Test

[beccaelizabeth]

Had a thought while I read about a book of essays on AI:

The Prime Directive says that no civilisation is to be contacted until they have achieved warp drive. But that's an arbitrary and almost irrelevant line in the sand. Warp drive isnt when they can handle contacting the neighbours, it is when the neighbours might bump into them anywhere, and cant ignore or isolate them any more.

The Turing Test is about judging AI by if it can pass as human when it has a conversation with one. (Which is daft, how many humans fail the Turing Test? Need a different line.) But today it occurs to me that is like warp drive. It says nothing about their moral or emotional capabilities, or what kind of community member they could be, and very little about 'intelligence'.

But it is the point where, barring keeping them physically isolated from comms, you cannot successfully ignore or isolate the newbies any more. (Without shutting the door on a ton of humans too.)

Comments

[kickair8p]

Huh. Good point.

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