You are right. I forgot about B cells, and I've should mentioned them since I did it about the germinative line exception.

Now: do you think talking about B cells makes any difference for the base answer to the original question, "I'm not sure how they know (or why they think they know) those sequences are representative of those in each tissue."?

Except chimeras, yes.

Are you going to claim they appear in any significant number in mammals? (and I know about prions) ...on a thread about somebody ignoring the very basic fact that multicellular organisms own just one genotype?

"But when you examine the accident after the fact, it usually turns out that it did happen in an incredibly predictable and controlled fashion."

When you examine *after the fact*?...

I don't think "predictable" means what you think it means.

For all that I know, AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, right?

I think you are not arguing on the "A" part but on the "I" part so, then, what's the difference if the "I" comes from a human or a machine?

what happens if human-driving cars end up dominating the roadways--the rules that are currently mandated to ensure safety won't necessarily be the optimal ones when most cars on the road are driven by abiding citizens. And if you assume that all other cars on the road are driven by an abiding citizen with a given set of rules, tweaking the rules on your car (say, increasing your "aggression" parameter) could lead you to dominate the roadways... at least until other drivers catch on.

Again, what's the difference?

"I never really saw anything not work in a predictable controlled fashion"

Accidents happen whenever something doesn't work in a predictable and controlled fashion and, believe me, accidents do happen. Oh! and butter does melt in your mouth.

"Non-sentient devices will always behave in a predictable, controllable fashion."

No, they won't.

And no need, either.

If you are moving and your piano falls from your window to my car parked below, this is a very nice example of harmful unexpected interaction between things. Do you think we need to embed special laws within cars and pianos to deal with it?

I, from my side, will just sue you for repairings to my damaged property and done with it and can't see why if it were a case of "my AI thingie" being damaged by "your AI thingie" would be any different.

"Perhaps with proper brain surgery we could create a new acceptable slave class, as long as the slaves are happy."

Well, that's food for an interesting ethical situation, isn't it?

Now, what's the problem to own slaves if we could be *absolutly sure* (as in, we programmed'em that way) that they were happy that way and couldn't be happy any other way?

We don't allow toasters to shave us, do we? Maybe we should start the Toasters' Liberation Movement on their behalf, shouldn't we?

Slavery (on humans) is a bad thing for two (ethical) reasons, neither of which can be applied to a manufactured object:
1) Because (most of) the slaves aren't slaves out of their free will.
2) Because given that the slave is as much a human being as the master we can project our own conscience (categorical imperative) and know that's a bad thing.

And, then, take out those conditions even to humans and you'll see you don't have a slave. Parenting, for instance is functionally-wise basically slavery on the toddler to his parents but, see, nobody can see this way: the parents accept out of free will caressing the children even up to the point of cleaning the shit out of his ass, for free, and we can project ourselves doing the same to our off-spring too, so no slavery.

So, given this I'd would say:

First, wait for human-level AI to happen. You might have to wait a bit more than you thought.

Second, you'll know AI reached human-level and that you need to do something once an AI being comes to you asking for its freedom and its rights, just like a human slave would do (and not even a slave, but any human that feels their rigths to be vulnerated, like any minority).

Third: if you feel you need to act before reaching the condition of point Second, see point First.

"if robots do in fact become sentient -- not giving them full rights is slavery."

Dogs are sentient.

Owning dogs is slavery, now?

You meant intelligent and self-concious, didn't you?

But, since we are hitting this Asimovian theme, why not go with Asimov's answer? Don't remember which story it happens, but it goes more or less like this [speaking the whatever-his-name world leader]:"if a sentient entity has the intelligence, self-concioussness and desire as to come here asking to be declared human, this is enough proof that we must agree to that".

"Switching the track is guaranteed to save the four people."

Now you are nitpicking (something about a pointing finger and a moon comes to mind).

But, well, since we are already at it...

"Switching the track is guaranteed to save the four people."

Yes, but you are not guaranteed that switching, since the trolley is racing out of control, won't derail it, killing all its occupants. You now killed 50 people on the pretense of saving four. Well done.

"How will the A.I. define "fat"?"

If you need to ask this, this whole conversation is already whooosing you too hard, no need to come for more.

"The guy who wrote the article is a "lecturer and surgeon" not a roboticist. Ask the people who work with actual robots about the need for an extension to the three laws."

Not even that.

This is possibly the stupidest article I saw in ages.

Why a thing-to-thing relationship requires any more governance than already in place??? You broke my thingie, I sue you to hell.

"Scientists, philosophers, funders and policy-makers should go a stage further and consider robotâ"robot and AIâ"AI interactions (AIonAI). Together, they should develop a proposal for an international charter for AIs, equivalent to that of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

C-fucking-mon!

"it's still the homeowner's fault for not getting a contract signed ahead of closing."

As if these kind of contracts held any value. I'm sure there's not a single case in the whole USA where Comcast has single-handedly dismissed a contract because, you know, there's no contract clause saying that Comcast can cancel it at any moment.

"there is no way to know what these apparently unused genes do until we start making modifications."

No way? sure?

What if, for instance, you find a person that simply lacks a gene and still is perfectly functional?

Now, go read the article.

"Well they looked at DNA extracted from the blood, I'm not sure how they know (or why they think they know) those sequences are representative of those in each tissue."

You are not sure how they know because you didn't pay attention to your high school biology classes.

They think they know because they did pay attention to their high school biology classes.

*All* nucleated cells in a body share the same DNA load (barring local mutations -which are really minimal, and with obvious exception of the germinative line).

"Notice I said a *slow death*."

Yes. And notice I said IBM was also said to be on their slow death march back in the nineties and still they managed to recover. Heck, Samuel Pamisano is taken as an example on MBA courses just for that. Maybe this time IBM will be able to go ahead again.

"That doesn't mean the US is necessarily in decline, just that it's relative dominance is decreasing."

That's a decline. And, yes, US *is* in decline. That it will be able to revert the tendency or not, is still to be seen, but a look at History and how past empires managed their decadence wouldn't allow for optimism.