Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!voder!pyramid!prls!philabs!linus!mbunix!bwk From: bwk@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Barry W. Kort) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Artificial Intelligence and Intelligence Summary: Simulated pain vs. real pain. Keywords: Reports of Distress vs. Distress Message-ID: <42468@linus.UUCP> Date: 6 Dec 88 04:28:25 GMT References: <484@soleil.UUCP> <1654@hp-sdd.HP.COM> <1908@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <1791@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <1918@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <44150@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <281@esosun.UUCP><283@esosun.UUCP> ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin) writes: > ... if you had a computer console in front of you with a button > marked "pain" (any human simulator had better have some sort of sensory > input), would you consider it okay to push it? Yes, if I was testing the computer's pain circuits. When a computer is in pain (i.e. a circuit board is burning out, or a cable is being cut), I want to be sure that it can sense its distress and accurately report its state of well-being. Similarly, if I put the machine in emotional pain (by giving it a program that runs forever and does no useful work), I hope the machine can diagnose the problem and gracefully aprise me of my error. Getting an incomprehensible core dump is like having a baby throw up because something it ate was indigestible. (I find core dumps indigestible.) Barry Kort