TED Community » Gabryelle Wolosik

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• A comment on Talk: Adam Ostrow: After your final status update

  May 4 2013: Star Trek did it. You could call up holograms on the holodeck of people long dead and have conversations with them. The computer uses a database of everything about that person to make the conversation as accurate as possible. The episode is called The Booby Trap
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booby_Trap_%28Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation%29
  
  "La Forge realizes that the only way to restore power is to reconfigure the warp drive and traces its design back to the Enterprise's construction and blueprints created by Dr. Leah Brahms. La Forge uses the ship's holodeck to create a simulation of Dr. Brahms to help him figure through the engine reconfiguration. As he does so, he encourages the computer to inject personality into the simulation and slowly gains romantic feelings for Dr. Brahms. Despite the simulation's help, La Forge is unable to find a way to safely maneuver the Enterprise away, and when Picard orders all extraneous power systems, including the holodeck, shut down to conserve power, La Forge convinces him to allow the holodeck to continue to run. After power is restored to the holodeck, La Forge and the simulated Dr. Brahms recognize an alternate solution to the problem "

• A reply on Talk: Adam Ostrow: After your final status update

  May 4 2013: Well we are working diligently on machines that can learn, and if that is the case, then a "personality" could continue to change.
  
  There is also talk of trying to make a *sentient* machine, which would realize it exits... and then could learn.
  
  This would not be "us" living forever. I would still be dead, my consciousness would be terminated. However, an AVATAR of me could still exist in the world.
  
  You hear older generations saying they had children, because apart of them would still be a live in the world. In a way, they would still be alive. However, children really do become different people, even if there are elements of us. This concept of this computerized avatar would be closer to what we are then our children. And if this matters to some people, that an avatar of them should exist in the world after they die.... I could see people lining up for it.

• A reply on Conversation: Since oxytocin can influence trust, is it possible to use it for manipulation? Can "the moral molecule" be used for immoral purposes?

  Nov 9 2011: Simply selling it doesn't necessarily mean it's being used for immoral purposes, but it does open up the possibility. From my reading it seems to be used in marriage counseling to get people to talk to each other honestly (as is ecstasy). It's used to help with depression, social anxiety and impotence.
  
  Drugs aren't always the best cure for a person's issues - however, when you're in the shoes of the suffering and you've been working hard at it a long time, who is an outside to say it's the wrong choice?

• A comment on Conversation: Since oxytocin can influence trust, is it possible to use it for manipulation? Can "the moral molecule" be used for immoral purposes?

  Nov 9 2011: Ever meet someone with a highly manipulative romantic partner? You can see them using affection to alter their decisions and gain trust when it isn't warranted.
  
  Anything in the hands of an immoral person can be abused.

• A reply on Conversation: Since oxytocin can influence trust, is it possible to use it for manipulation? Can "the moral molecule" be used for immoral purposes?

  Nov 9 2011: That's a pretty broad stroke assumption. I never met a woman who would trust a creepy guy because his dog was cute. Maybe it's a function of big city living, but sketchy is sketchy to everyone I know!