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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6619333" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think your recognition that CG and LG are in opposition regarding the means to an end is correct, but that you are giving short shrift to the debate between good and evil because you are improperly assuming you conclusion.  A decent intro to the debate say LG and LE are having might be seen in the end of Asimov's 'Foundation and Earth', in which the question becomes in the name of serving the greatest interest of humanity, can the self-appointed guardians of humanity (the highly advanced AI's) take steps which individual humans and perhaps even the majority of humans might find abhorrent and contrary to their wishes.  Ultimately, the AI's are given permission to embark upon their plans to subjugate all human free will and to manipulate humanity into becoming components in a single super-organism led by the AI's because the plan is deemed necessary to protect humanity from the possibility of eventual extinction by any extra-galactic intelligence which has made the same choice because the superorganism where each individual's will is made subordinate to the greater whole is deemed to be more survivable and potent than any competing organism.   Or in other words, so long as the entire universe is not assimilated, so long as the possibility of conflict between the The Group and The Other exists, the weal and happiness of the group is less important than its survival since by definition the extinction of the group or equivalent catastrophe would be the greatest unhappiness that could befall it.   Evil sees good as naively choosing short term happiness over actual health - that is strength and capacity to enforce your will on others and resist their will.   While the robots in the discussion don't see themselves as advocating for evil, and indeed are not discounting happiness and health in their calculations, it's pretty easy to see that their argument would ultimately end up trading any amount of happiness for any amount of strength.  Lawful evil societies simply take this argument to its logical conclusion, not as an emergency response (by which point it might be too late), but as the desirable pervading state of existence.And there are many other points of contention, not the least of which is the ultimate point of continuation between good and evil - should existence, intelligence, community, and life be allowed to continue in the first place?   It's nice to imagine that everyone has as their original position the notion that they should, but its not at all clear that everyone is 'rational' in that sense and certainly it is clear that not everyone perceives everyone else as having that position.</blockquote>

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