The idea that we might be robots is no longer the stuff of science fiction; decades of research in evolutionary biology and cognitive science have led many esteemed scientists to the conclusion that... humans are merely the hosts for two replicators (genes and memes) that have no interest in us except as conduits for replication...
It seems to be stretching the definition of "host" in biology quite a bit to say that an organism is "host" to its own genes. It seems rather like saying an organism is in a symbiosis with itself. Organisms are host to their memes, and to the genes of their gut bacteria - but their own genes are more like a part of them.
Organisms are host to their memes, and to the genes of their gut bacteria
Unless the gut bacteria where somehow only transmitted from say mother to children. Then it is basically like mitochondria, a integrated part of that particular organism.
But where does this leave "driving genes" - alleles that help themselves rather than the bearer. It is quite easy to imagine such a gene. To take the metaphor of a computer program:
Gene X: When sexual recombination occurs ALWAYS copy this line.
Clearly this dosen't add to the usability of the progr...
The jacket text for Keith Stanovich's The Robot's Rebellion sums up the book well:
The book is an excellent introduction to the first stage of Yudkowskian philosophy: We are robots in a mechanistic universe running on a swiss army knife of cognitive modules. But at least we finally noticed we're robots, and we can use the skills of rationality to hop off our habit treadmills and pursue our values instead. These values are complex and often arbitrary, but we can use our reflective capacities to extrapolate our values based on "higher-order" desires, a desire for preference consistency, and other considerations. All this is argued for at length in Stanovich's book. The only thing missing is a discussion of what to do about all this when AI arrives.