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“ Humankind could achieve the simultaneous perpetuation and development of its being and expansion of its niche of the Universe. At the price of being a part of a larger system mankind could achieve immortality for itself. The Earth was a gift of creation, but someday people may have the opportunity to make many more such systems of their own choosing. ”

“ New developments in science and technology frequently have profound religious and philosophical consequences. The observation that, rather than being the center of a rather small universe, the Earth is but a small frail speck of a spacecraft in an unimaginably enormous universe is only just now beginning to be appreciated and woven into the fabric of human religion, philosophy, and culture. The existence of an alien race of beings, as alive as we are, would similarly challenge our old beliefs. We may encounter this alien race either through SETI or through our own technological creation. ”

“ Man-machine co-evolution. In the very long term, there are two possibilities for the future of mankind: Either we are a biological "waystation" in the evolutionary scheme of the universe, or else we are an evolutionary dead end. If we continue to be limited to our exceedingly fragile existence on spaceship Earth, a natural disaster or our own jingoistic or ecological foolhardiness is almost certain to terminate our existence perhaps centuries or millennia from today. ”

“ A robot may not injure a human being. A robot must use common sense. A robot must be intelligent. A robot must be conscious. Common sense, intelligence, and consciousness are the essence of artificial intelligence research. Even if we cannot exhaustively enumerate the ways to harm a human in any and all circumstances, a robot with the above four properties would protect people to the best of its ability. ”

“ Thus, our machines can reproduce themselves as well as tell whether an encountered machine is "like" themselves or could be one of their offspring. If the structure of an encountered machine is examined and found to be similar to or identical to the machines of one's own making or of one's own system of machines, then such machine should be welcomed, tolerated, repaired, supplied with energy and consumables, and put to work in the common enterprise. ”

“ It is difficult, or impossible, and in many cases ill-advised, to retreat from a social or mechanical technology once it has been widely introduced and a really significant change has taken place. Many individuals in our society would prefer to turn back the clock on the industrial revolution, but today this could not be done without the sacrifice of hundreds of millions of human lives and extreme trauma to global civilization. ”

“ Thus, at every point in its lifespan, the SRS probe can serve its creators in some profitable capacity. A machine which degrades to below the ability to self-reproduce need not simply "die."
The SRS is so powerful a tool that it could have implications on a cosmological scale. With the SRS humanity could set in motion a chain reaction of organization sweeping across the Universe at near the speed of light. This organized part of the Universe could itself be viewed as a higher level "organism." ”

“ Or would it tend to view humanity much as we view lemurs and chimpanzees - ancient species that served as an important link in an evolutionary chain, but which is now merely another "lower order" of life? Would humankind be seen as nothing more than an evolutionary precursor? ”

“ Many people, suspicious of modern computers and robotics technology, take solace in the fact that "no matter what goes wrong, we can always pull out the plug." Such individuals might insist that humankind always retain ultimate Life-and-death control over its machines, as part of the social price to be paid to permit their development. Whether this is advisable, or even necessary, is a question which requires further study. Certainly it is true that our civilization all too easily becomes habituated to its machines, institutions, and large organizations. ”

“ Could conscious, intelligent machines have a soul? Or, what is for many purposes equivalent, will they think they have a soul? How will human religions respond to the prospect of an intelligent machine capable of self-replication? ”

“ A number of fundamental but far-reaching ethical issues are raised by the possible existence of replicating machines in the Galaxy. For instance, is it morally right, or equitable, for a self-reproducing machine to enter a foreign solar system and convert part of that system's mass and energy to its own purposes? Does an intelligent race legally "own" its home sun, planets, asteroidal materials, moons, solar wind, and comets? ”

“ Figure 5.27 - Population of extraterrestrial civilizations as a function of galactic time. If we do in fact find such machines and are able to interrogate them successfully, we may become privy to the doings of incredibly old alien societies long since perished. These societies may lead to many others, so we may be treated, not just to a marvelous description of the entire biology and history of a single intelligent race, but also to an encyclopedic travelogue describing thousands or millions of other extraterrestrial civilizations known to the creators of the probe we are examining. ”

“ Will a vast industrialized lunar complex of interacting systems be vulnerable to catastrophic accidents and breakdowns, or to attack, subversion, or disruption, either by unexpected machine responses generated out of the complexity of their interactions, or by the interference of one or more unfriendly powers on Earth? ”

“ If machines are capable of developing their own systems of "ethics," it would probably appear as alien to human eyes as does the behavior of other animal species (e.g., the apparent "cruelty" of many insect species) .
Will advanced machines have any artistic urges, a sense of humor, curiosity, or a sense of irony, or are these kinds of responses confined exclusively to biological creatures capable of displaying emotion? It is unknown whether machines even need emotionality - we are only beginning to understand the functions of these responses in mammals and humans. ”

“ Environmentalists might perhaps regard SRS released on Earth merely as automated strip-mining robots - yet another sophisticated instrumentality in the hands of those who would mercilessly rape the Earth of its limited resources, leaving behind the ugly scars of profit. There are two responses to this shortsighted view of SRS. First, in the Age of Plenty ushered in by these machines, human society will be sufficiently wealthy to regard environmental integrity and beauty as indispensable outputs of any manufacturing system. ”

“ From the businessman's point of view, it might be better just to sell a "mule SRS" - an infertile factory with the capacity for rapid automated manufacturing but which lacks some vital software element or process necessary for replication. Of course, this is an open invitation to black market traffic in "bootstrap kits" which allow users to restore fertility to their neutered systems. It is difficult to see how the rapid spread of such technology, once introduced in any form, could be held in check for long by any governmental, corporate, or private entity. ”

“ Does it make a difference if the planets are inhabited by intelligent beings, and if so, is there some lower threshold of intellect below which a system may ethically be "invaded" or expropriated? If the sentient inhabitants lack advanced technology, or if they have it, should this make any difference in our ethical judgment of the situation? ”

“ The use of self replicating systems on Earth poses many problems. A compact, freely replicating system released on the surface of the Earth potentially could compete with humans for resources such as living space and energy. It could also smother us in its waste products. Even if kept under control, a terrestrial SRS could wreak economic havoc by manufacturing products for which the consumers who will use the products will not have to pay. Unfortunately, we will probably have to deal with this problem regardless of whether replicating systems technology per se is ever developed. ”

“ Any machine which chances upon a behavioral sign that secures the assistance of a machine or a population of machines will be spared efforts at survival it would otherwise have to undertake on its own, and thus will possess extra resources which can be utilized to undertake the construction of more machines like itself. If the "deceitful signal" behavior is transmitted in the genetic-construction program, then its offspring will also be able to employ the deceitful signal, and will thus produce proportionately more of their kind. ”

“ To serve mankind. The most immediate, urgent impetus for the development of automation and machine replicative techniques is to improve, protect, and increase the productivity of human society. One way of achieving the goal of human preservation and improvement is to make our mechanical creations intelligent, so that they can automatically do what is good for us. ”

“ Is it possible to view the machine as possessing a "soul"?
What of man's view of himself? He now takes pride in his uniqueness. How will he adjust to being just an example of the generic class "intelligent creature"? ”

“ Machine capabilities of the future span a wide spectrum of sophistication of operation. As systems become more complex, individual human beings will come to understand decreasing fractions of the entire machine function. In addition, very advanced devices such as SRS may need to be programmed with primitive survival instincts and repair capabilities if they are to function autonomously. At some point the depth of analysis and sophistication of action available to a robot system may exceed the abilities of human minds to defeat it (should this become necessary) . ”

“ Nations not possessing replicating systems technology will fear an accelerating economic and cultural gulf between the haves and the have-nots. On another level altogether, humankind as a species may regard the burgeoning machine population as competitors for scarce energy and material resources, even if the net return from the SRS population is positive.
Of course, self-replicating factories are not ends in themselves but have specific purposes - say, to produce certain desired products. ”

“ There are countless uses we could make of an "intelligent eye" that has been watching our planet for thousands or millions of years, meticulously recording everything it sees.
SRS probes can be sent to other star systems to reproduce their own kind and spread. Each machine thus created may be immortal (limitlessly self-repairing) or mortal. If mortal, then the machines may be further used as follows. As a replicating system degrades below the point where it is capable of reproducing itself, it can sink to a more simple processing mode. ”

“ However, in the case of machines the locus of behavior can indeed be specified: it is in the program of instructions, and these programs can, like genes, be modified and transmitted to offspring. Though we may not be mere machines driven by our genes, mere real machines are indeed driven by their gene-like programs, and for them, some of the evolutionary biological predictions of the likely resulting system behaviors may apply. ”

“ It appears that self-replicating systems may have numerous economical applications on Earth, in near-earth and lunar space, throughout the Solar System, and perhaps even in the interstellar realm, for future exploration and utilization. The main advantage of SRS is their tremendous capability for performing any desired task at almost any remote location starting with a relatively small investment of time, money, energy, and mass. This suggests that replication technology may have significant social and economic impacts on American and human society, as discussed below. ”

“ It has often been suggested that an extraterrestrial biologist who chose Los Angeles as the site for his field study of Earth might well conclude that the automobile was the dominant lifeform on this planet and that humans represented its detachable brains and reproductive organs. Indeed, further observation might suggest that many people are redundant although the human population of Los Angeles has remained relatively constant during the past decade, the car population has continued to increase.
This issue has tremendous importance to the question of human survival and long-term evolution. ”

“ If a single machine of the sort which reproduces ever chances upon the program "trait" of tolerating machines like itself, or aiding or repairing them while ignoring, disabling, or dismantling machines unlike itself and its offspring, then this machine species will tend to increase its numbers at the expense of other reproducing machines (all other things being equal) so that after a few generations all machines, quite without having been given the goal or purpose of preferring their own kind, will have this kin-preferring property. ”

“ If control of Earth-deployed replicating factories is retained by national or subnational entities, governments lacking this technology will seek equitable licensing agreements. One interesting problem is ownership of SRS offspring grown from the soil of one country but generated by a leased parent machine owned by another. Should licensing arrangements require return of offspring? Perhaps the offspring should be allowed to remain the property of the licensee, but with royalties levied against production in favor of the owner of the parent machine? ”

“ On the other hand, humans may purposely engender the creation of intelligent reproducing machines whose emergent philosophy we are considering. Our role is clearly much more than that of passive precursor; rather, it is one of active creator - conceiving, planning, designing, developing, building, programming, and deploying the SRS. It seems plausible that, for this reason, mankind might also expect to play a more active role in any "machine theology" that might ultimately develop. ”