The ethics of randomized computation in the multiverse

lukeprog

From David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity:

Take a powerful computer and set each bit randomly to 0 or 1 using a quantum randomizer. (That means that 0 and 1 occur in histories of equal measure.) At that point all possible contents of the computer’s memory exist in the multiverse. So there are necessarily histories present in which the computer contains an AI program – indeed, all possible AI programs in all possible states, up to the size that the computer’s memory can hold. Some of them are fairly accurate representations of you, living in a virtual-reality environment crudely resembling your actual environment. (Present-day computers do not have enough memory to simulate a realistic environment accurately, but, as I said in Chapter 7, I am sure that they have more than enough to simulate a person.) There are also people in every possible state of suffering. So my question is: is it wrong to switch the computer on, setting it executing all those programs simultaneously in different histories? Is it, in fact, the worst crime ever committed? Or is it merely inadvisable, because the combined measure of all the histories containing suffering is very tiny? Or is it innocent and trivial?

I'm not so sure we have the computing power to "simulate a person," but suppose we did. (Perhaps we will soon.) How would you respond to this worry?

From David Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity:

Take a powerful computer and set each bit randomly to 0 or 1 using a quantum randomizer. (That means that 0 and 1 occur in histories of equal measure.) At that point all possible contents of the computer’s memory exist in the multiverse. So there are necessarily histories present in which the computer contains an AI program – indeed, all possible AI programs in all possible states, up to the size that the computer’s memory can hold. Some of them are fairly accurate representations of you, living in a virtual-reality environment crudely resembling your actual environment. (Present-day computers do not have enough memory to simulate a realistic environment accurately, but, as I said in Chapter 7, I am sure that they have more than enough to simulate a person.) There are also people in every possible state of suffering. So my question is: is it wrong to switch the computer on, setting it executing all those programs simultaneously in different histories? Is it, in fact, the worst crime ever committed? Or is it merely inadvisable, because the combined measure of all the histories containing suffering is very tiny? Or is it innocent and trivial?

I'm not so sure we have the computing power to "simulate a person," but suppose we did. (Perhaps we will soon.) How would you respond to this worry?

The measure of the branches where the computer contain any such program, as opposed to total nonsense, is so small as to be ignorable. There's no point in worrying about it, because it practically doesn't happen.

Maybe I'm confused here. For background, I thought that even in MWI some 'worlds' might not have conscious observers. Normally we can comfort ourselves with the thought that extremely low-amplitude configurations (like those in which ravenous pink teddy-bears spontaneously destroy all that we hold dear) might not cause anyone pain because they might lack the ability to support consciousness. (Obviously I'm ignoring Tegmark IV here.)

But surely every configuration of ones and zeros in the computer has equal amplitude. That would mean that if we 'observe' eac... (read more)

0Manfred14y

More specifically, I'm pretty sure us humans don't have any negative parts of our utility function that grow exponentially with "badness," so there's no bad outcome that can overcome the exponential decrease in probability with program size to actually be a significant factor.

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The ethics of randomized computation in the multiverse

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The ethics of randomized computation in the multiverse

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