Dr. Martine Rothblatt, an expert in medical ethics, takes the time to imagine a future in which artificial intelligence is real and the potential problems that could arise from such interactions.
Unfortunately, I found Virtually Human to be virtually unreadable.
The introduction sounded promising enough — a description of the robot that Dr. Rothblatt created and its capabilities — but then Dr. Rothblatt launches into an abstract conversation about what is consciousness. She applies her definition to hypothetical artificial intelligences, which haven’t been created yet, and proceeds into a dizzying array of potential scenarios involving mindclones and “bemans”.
She talks about potential marriages between people and machines, various types of AI — some dysfunctional, some not — voting rights, reproduction rights, and more. It all reads like a discussion of very dry, very abstract human rights law mixed with a smidgen of science fiction, but not enough to be engaging.
Dr. Rothblatt certainly knows her stuff, but is seemingly unable to impart her knowledge in an approachable manner. Perhaps, I should say, this is a book that would probably be enjoyed by scholars interested the subject.
I suppose this might be more interesting when such technology actually exists, but in the meantime, it seems rather pointless to be asking ourselves if mindclones should have the right to vote or not. I’m not convinced that by asking ourselves unanswerable questions we’ll be better prepared for when/if this sort of thing actually occurs. Maybe we’ll just have to take life as it comes.
I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads.
Thanks for reading!
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