I think it would be difficult to construct an ethical system where you give no consideration to cognitive capacity. Is there a practical reason for said superintelligence to not take into account humans' cognitive capacity? Is there a logical reason for same?
Not to make light of a serious question, but, "Equal rights for bacteria!"? I think not.
Aside: I am puzzled as to the most likely reason Esar's comment was downvoted. Was it perhaps considered insufficiently sophisticated, or implying that its poster was insufficiently well-read, for LW?
I think it would be difficult to construct an ethical system where you give ''no'' consideration to cognitive capacity.
This is likely more a problem of insufficient imagination. For example, consider a system that takes seriously the idea of souls. One might very well decide that all that matters is whether an entity has a soul, completely separate from its apparent intelligence level. Similarly, a sufficiently racist individual might assign no moral weight to people of some specific racial group, regardless of their intelligence.
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