Ape • June 28, 2022 4:01 PM

It seems to me that the impact of the thought experiment resides in this: we have evolved backwards. Rather than insisting that it is robots who have to prove they are humans, we have evolved into a situation where humans have to prove they are not robots. Whatever happened to cognito ergo sum? It is now: I exist because the robot says I exist. If the robot says I don’t exist, I don’t exist. There is probably some fancy Latin way of saying it. So the heart of the problem is not “code is law”. The heart of the problem is that we have devolved law to programmers. Not just law, either, but the reality of our lives.

Now let’s imagine a different thought experiment. One where a person physically exists so they have an identity. In that cultural reality the question is not a question of token verification but a question of “Who is this person?”. They must be somebody. So we go about deciphering who they are. It is humans who have control, not the code, not the programmers, not the token. Maybe we even decide that the person is not the person who he was before the house burned down. Does it matter if the victim cannot regain his old identity if we give him a new one? Why the need for convergence on the old, on perpetuation?

It is time to regain control of our own identity.