Death and pain of a digital brain

• Autores: Anders Sandberg
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3038, 2015, págs. 26-27
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Sandberg comments on the simulation human brains. He asserts that although these digital emulations could resolve many existing ethical dilemmas, they raise new ones. The first is that many real animals must be sacrificed to create a virtual one. Scientists may one day scan the final lab rat, which will become Standard Lab Rat 1.0, and rely on simulation from then on--but there will have been years of basic neuroscience to enable that simulation. The second problem is that scientists need to be certain their simulations are right if they want to trust them with their drug testing or other research. The third problem is whether emulations would feel pain. He stresses that brains exist for motivating actions that lead to better outcomes for the organism: this is the whole point of pain, pleasure and planning. If scientists are to make a perfect copy of the activity of a brain, they would get the same behavior, based on the same pattern of internal interactions. There is no way of telling from the outside whether it has any real experience, whatever that is.