What's with the ems? People who are into ems seem to make a lot of assumptions about what ems are like and seem completely unattached to present-day culture or even structure of life, seem willing to spam duplicates of people around, etc. I know that Hanson thinks that 1. ems will not be robbed of their humanity and 2. that lots of things we currently consider horrible will come to pass and be accepted, but it's rather strange just how as soon as people say 'em' (as opposed to any other form of uploading) everything gets weird. Does anthropics come into it?

Why the huge focus on fully paternalistic Friendly AI rather than Obedient AI? It seems like a much lower-risk project. (and yes, I'm aware of the need for Friendliness in Obedient AI.)