Machine Intelligence and Human Ethics

[Anomalocaris]

I recently reread Carl Sagan's essay 'In Defense Of Robots', in which he makes his usually eloquent case for the unmanned exploration of space, among other things.

In the essay, he stresses the point that unmanned space vehicles will necessarily have to become more intelligent if they are to remain the best option for this type of work. But he stops short of at what seems (to me, at least) to be a vitally important question:  At what point does machine intelligence make it unethical to use spacebots for suicide missions?

Indeed, in the next century (if humanity manages to live that long) there will be such powerful all knowing computers that they will be able to explore other planets, space and other galaxies by staying on Earth and calculating what is out there very precisely without ever anyone visiting other planets and galaxies.





EDIT now I put the correct video

The imminent arrival of the ability to forecast all reality without having to accommodate any possibility of impertinent disagreement by reality has been predicted since man first got into the business of predicting.

In fact the most enthusiastic practitioners of such predicts are the religious zelots.