Bioethics and Mindcloning

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One possible solution to ethically developing mindclones is to take the project in stages. The first
stage must not rely upon self-awareness or consciousness. This would be based upon first
developing the autonomous, moral reasoning ability that is a necessary, but not sufficient, basis for
consciousness. By running many simulations, mindclone developers can gain comfort that the
reasoning ability of the mindware is human-equivalent. In fact, the reasoning ability of the
mindware should match that of the biological original who is being mindcloned.
The second stage of development expands the mindware to incorporate human feelings and
emotions, via settings associated with aspects of pain, pleasure and the entire vast spectrum of
human sentience. At this stage, all the feelings and emotions are terminating in a “black box,”
devoid of any self-awareness. Engineers will measure and validate that the feelings are real, via
instruments, but no “one” will actually be feeling the feelings.
The third stage entails creating in software the meaningful memories and patterns of thought of the
original person being mindcloned. This can be considered the identity module. If this is a case of a
de novo cyberconscious being, i.e., a beman, then this identity module is either missing or is created
from whole cloth.
Finally, a consciousness bridge will be developed that marries the reasoning, sentience and identity
modules, giving rise to autonomy with empathy and hence consciousness. Feelings and emotions
will be mapped to memories and characteristic ways of processing information. There will be a
sentient research subject when the consciousness bridge first connects the autonomy, empathy and
identity modules.
Ethically, approval from research authorities should be obtained before the consciousness bridge is
activated. There will be concern not to cause gratuitous harm, nor to cause fear, and to manage the
subject at the end of the experiment gracefully or to continue its virtual life appropriately. The
ethics approvals may be more readily granted if the requests are graduated. For example, the first
request could be to bridge just a small part of the empathy, identity and autonomy modules, and for
just a brief period of time. After the results of experiments are assessed, positive results would be
used to request more extensive approvals. Ultimately there would be adequate confidence that a
protocol existed pursuant to which a mindclone could be safely, and humanely, awakened into full
consciousness for an unending period of time — just as there are analogous protocols for bringing
flesh patients out of medically induced comas.
In the foregoing way, it will be possible to ethically develop mindware that can be approved by
regulatory authorities as capable of producing safe and effective mindclones for ordinary people.
The authority may be the FDA in the U.S., or the EMA in the E.U., or some new regulatory entity.
They will need to be assured that the mindware is safe and effective, and that proving it so was
accomplished via clinical trials that were ethically conducted. By taking the inchoate mindclone
through incrementally greater stages of consciousness, the regulatory hurdle can be met.
See more at:
http://www.kurzweilai.net