# Plausibility of cyborgism for protecting boundaries?

Most of my [boundaries](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/boundaries-membranes-technical) work so far has been focused on protecting boundaries "*from the outside*". For example, maybe davidad's OAA could produce some kind of boundary-defending global police AI.

But, imagine parenting a child and protecting them by keeping them inside all day. Seems kind of lame. Something else you could do, though, is not restrict the child and instead allow them to become stronger and better at defending themselves.

So: you can defend boundaries "from the outside", or you can empower those boundaries to be better at protecting themselves "*from the inside*". (Because, if everyone could defend themselves perfectly, then we wouldn't need AI safety, lol)

Defending boundaries "from the inside" has the advantage of encouraging individual agents/moral patients to be more autonomous and sovereign.  

I put some examples of what this might look like in [Protecting agent boundaries](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/GZap3EfpdftKSanHK/protecting-agent-boundaries#Empower_membranes_to_be_better_at_self_defense):

> **Empower membranes to be better at self-defense**
> 
> Empower the membranes of humans and other moral patients to be more resilient to collisions with threats. Examples:
> 
> *   Manipulation defense: You have an AI assistant that filters potentially-adversarial information for you.
> *   Crime defense: Police have AI assistants that help them predict, deduce, investigate, and prevent crime.
> *   Physical threat defense: (If nanotech works out) You have an AI assistant that shields you from physical threats.
> *   Biological defense: Faster better vaccines, personal antibody printers, etc.
> *   Cybersecurity defense: Good security practices and strong encryption. Software encryption can be arbitrarily strong. 
>     *   c.f. writing about this from Foresight Institute: [(1)](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kvk2ZorXui4YB4zvc/ai-infosec-first-strikes-zero-day-markets-hardware-supply), [(2)](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TZy4mFJFJ4yv2MRhg/boundaries-based-security-and-ai-safety-approaches), [(3)](https://foresightinstitute.substack.com/p/defend-cyber)…
> *   Legal defense: personal AI assistants for e.g. interfacing with contracts and the legal system.
> *   Bargaining: personal AI assistants for negotiation.
> *   [Human intelligence enhancement](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/intelligence-amplification)
> *   [Cyborgism](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/cyborgism) 
> *   Mark Miller and Allison Duettmann (Foresight Institute) outline more ideas in the form of “Active Shields” here: [7\. DEFEND AGAINST PHYSICAL THREATS | Multipolar Active Shields](https://foresightinstitute.substack.com/i/48454831/decentralize-defense-multipolar-active-shields). Cf *Engines of Creation* by Eric Drexler.
> *   Related: [We have to Upgrade](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vEtdjWuFrRwffWBiP/we-have-to-upgrade) – Jed McCaleb $$

I'm looking to talk to people about the plausibility of empowering boundaries to be better at defending themselves / cyborgism. Let me know, or leave a comment if you know anyone who's thinking about this.