Here is a simple one question survey that I’d like to get a hundred or so folks to answer. It is a surprisingly interesting question, and I have a bet with Bryan Caplan on it, but I won’t say more now, so as not to bias your answer.
This is his post. It sure is surprisingly interesting. I found the phrasing of the question really boggled my mind. *Should* suggests there is one answer, yet we can choose many. *Should* for some reason also pushes my mind to think of what people will adopt instead of what I’d like them to adopt. I really don’t think there’s any concrete reason for picking one over another.
Will we be comfortable reclassifying people?
Perhaps this is Hanson’s bet with Caplan. New category vs old category. If that’s the case, I’d bet people will be less scared of classifying robots as something human than classifying humans into some novel superset.
We will want to think there’s nothing different about ourselves because we won’t feel any different.
Not Unreasonable 