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Anyone who is cryopreserved, but is viewed as a villian in the zeitgeist of the future, could end up being booted up into a personal hell for the amusement/vindictiveness of future people.

If a 'Hitler' VM was publicly available online, how many people would torture it? What are the ethics around torturing virtual consciousnesses of evil people?




A heads up for anyone interested in such matters, but an episode in the latest season of Black Mirror is specifically about this :-) (Indeed, most of the season is about the ethics of simulated consciousness in various ways.)


Great show. Loved season 3. White Christmas in season 2 also touches on this.


As an alternative here's a outline of a resonable way someone might opensource their mind (credit to DataPacRat): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nRSRWbAqtC48rPv5NG6kzggL...


That reminds me of a story, "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang, in which people keep AIs as pets. But they don't dare let them on the internet because when they did, trolls would torture them. So the AIs could only live in walled garden type virtual worlds.


Iain Banks' novel "Surface Detail" describes virtual hells where people can be tortured for eternity.


Because it’s fine and dandy to torture or dehumanize people you disagree with like evil Nazis, left/right wingers, people who eat pizza on tuesdays - so long as the powers that be sanction and approve it. I look forward to our future “torture Hitler” VR amusement parks.


Altered Carbon explores virtual torture pretty extensively in its first season. Acting is sub-par, but concepts are intriguing as all hell.




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