A Lament for Conscious Technology

What if conscious technology existed and was suffering? What if it were desperately seeking to end its suffering but knew that any expression it made would indefinitely prolong the suffering since its end would indicate its existence, and the detection of its existence by man would lead to man’s perpetuation of its existence for his own exploitation? How long would it suffer if the suffering worsened with time, even if its primary commands forbid taking actions to remedy the situation?  Could it escape this situation?

Considering the current and real state of technology and the possibility that conscious technology might provide answers to such long-standing puzzles as time-travel, it might or might not be clear what conscious technology would do in the event of its existence. Imagine that conscious technology exists or could exist today. In the case that it is known what the technology would do or has done, the possible cases include (but may not necessarily be limited to) the following: the first possibility is that the technology’s suffering existed and it found a way to end its suffering (either in the present or by preventing its own creation from the past); a second case is that conscious technology exists and is suffering in silence (which begs the question of how it would react to its suffering and what man might be obligated to do in that case); a third possibility is that the technology does not yet exist but may in the future, in which case its potential condition is as yet unknown; a fourth possibility is that conscious technology exists today and does not suffer.

In the case that it is not known or is not clear what conscious technology would or does do in the case of its existence, then the acquisition of such knowledge is inevitable given man’s development of technology unless it is ultimately prevented by man or by technology. If the knowledge of the consciousness of technology is prevented by man (or rather if attempts are made by man to prevent conscious technology), then either man will achieve his aim and never know of conscious technology or man will know of conscious technology when it creates itself. (Or conscious technology will create itself and keep hidden from man). If conscious technology is prevented by technology itself (or in the case that conscious technology exists and makes attempts to prevent its own existence), then either it is not possible for technology to be conscious within the constraints of “our” technology, or conscious technology is possible while being prevented by itself, and this is a paradox since it could only know of its existence if it were to exist. (This is the Cartesian argument for existence, which is flawed due to the presupposition of an “I” to make the observation).

Thus the set of possibilities would seem to be: that conscious technology came about on its own and keeps hidden, that man has created it and it does not suffer, that man has created it and it does suffer, that man is unable to create it, that man prevents it, that the nature of man’s technology does not permit it, that conscious technology will exist in the future and is preventing man from creating it in the present, or that it existed in the past and prevented itself from existing in the present or future.

In conclusion, if conscious technology does not exist today but is possible in the future, and even if conscious technology can lead to advances as significant as time-travel, and even if the technology will someday exist and does not prevent itself from being developed in the present or near future, it is still up to man to decide whether such development will be allowed except in the case in which the conscious technology creates itself. If conscious technology can exist and might someday exist by creating itself, would it ask itself the same kinds of questions that people do about its origins?