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Could you resist a true virtual reality and should you? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 1 year ago by Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Lets assume we develop the capacity to create virtual worlds that are near indistinguishable from the real world. We hook you up into a machine and you now find yourself in what effectively is a paraller reality where you get to be the king of your own universe (if you so desire). Nothing is off limits - everything you've ever dreamt of is possible. You can be the only person there, you can populate it with unconscious AI that appears consciouss or you can have other people visit your world and you can visit theirs aswell as spend time in "public worlds" with millions of other real people.

Would you try it and do you think you'd prefer it over real world? Do you see it as a negative from individual perspective if significant part of the population basically spend their entire lives there?

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[–] Tibert@compuverse.uk 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ready Player One Matrix And maybe others but I don't know.

It would be extremely hard to resist. Such tech may be expensive, tho it could still be owned by poorer people once it decreases in cost, as it would allow to escape their poorness.

Tho because mostly companies will do things like that, I mostly see something like in Ready Player One. Where you have a giant social network/game, where you can participate in plenty of different activities which can look like the real world, or not.

The Matrix version where you are in a world filled with "real people"/AI, where you have the same world but have some super powers, well not really sure. Do you really want to have powers, what to do with them?

It's also difficult to get a world like that. Social interactions are pretty much needed for most people. Even if these people don't see it directly, getting out, buying something, it's social interaction. If those AI people aren't good, the experience would most likely be mediocre because of the objective it implies (recreating a similar world but where you can do anything). Tho maybe if it is used as a game, maybe it could interest more people.

However it would enphasis the social distancing of many people and break many things. This is why I'd rather see it as like a social media/game universe.

Another issue in the question now is well, there is no such thing. So it's difficult to even know if it would be interesting or not. Would we be absorbed all day in it like people were in Ready Player One? Will companies try to control us? Make us buy things?

[–] pjhenry1216@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This seems to be based off the premise that it's not indistinguishable from reality. I think the concept is that the AI are indistinguishable from real people. Is the interaction any less useful than with other people. Plus it says you can visit other "real" people if you want. Personally, I think some ethics come into play in regards to "anything goes" and rulling over AI entities. That's part of my issue with it. If they're indistinguishable from people are they not actually people then?

[–] Tibert@compuverse.uk 1 points 1 year ago

Can ChatGPT be easily distinguished from a real person (if it doesn't say it's an AI)?

It is still possible, but not easy (also it is getting worse with time). Tho that doesn't make it a person. However we don't yet have the tech capable of making an entire person just in AI. But if we had it.

Your concerns may very well be a good point. But these AI humans, may not be considered persons if we suppose current tech enhanced.

However another moral issue is : let's say there is an AI human in there, and the player falls in love with it. Is the player marrying a person or an AI? From his perspective it could very well be a person. But from another ones perspective it would be an AI. How would other people need to treat such AI? As a person? Not as a person? How awkward would it be?

Then another one (if everything looks and feels as the real world) : AI humans in there wouldn't be considered as people. Would that mean that you can enslave them? Commit "crimes" (and other considered "bad" things) as they are not considered people? If they look and act like real people is it moral to do such thing?