True, and it is a great possible explanation of the Fermi paradox as well. All the advanced alien civilizations could just be stacked in boxes with no desire to expand. On the other hand, it seems more conducive to survival to want to expand through the universe, and then stack in boxes. Also, it hardly seems objective to say that we should maximize the number of ems possible. That sounds like Kantian ethics of valuing people in themselves. Even if you agreed with Kant, (I personally Kant stand him :D) you might no value uploads in themselves.
That sounds like Kantian ethics of valuing people in themselves
Or just increasing the number of people if they have positive utility.
If you were a utilitarian, then why would you want to risk creating an AGI that had the potential to be an existential risk, when you could eliminate all suffering with the advent of WBE (whole brain emulation) and hence virtual reality (or digital alteration of your source code) and hence utopia? Wouldn't you want to try to prevent AI research and just promote WBE research? Or is it that AGI is more likely to come before WBE and so we should focus our efforts on making sure that the AGI is friendly? Or maybe uploading isn't possible for technological or philosophical reasons (substrate dependence)?
Is there a link to a discussion on this that I'm missing out on?