claim

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claim:the-exponential-or-super-exponential-reproductive-potential-of-digital-minds-could-allow-them-to-vastly-outnumber-humans-in-a-relatively-short-time-correspondingly-increasing-the-collective-strength-of-their-moral-claims

The exponential or super-exponential reproductive potential of digital minds could allow them to vastly outnumber humans in a relatively short time, correspondingly increasing the collective strength of their moral claims

Establishes the reproductive capacity dimension of super-beneficiary status

Source paper

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Sharing the World with Digital Minds

Carl Shulman · Nick Bostrom

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Claims (2)

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Multiple distinct quantitative and qualitative dimensions make it robust that digital minds will be super-beneficiaries at technological maturity
supports
The paper's central empirical-philosophical thesis synthesizing nine paths
If rapidly reproducing digital minds have at least as strong a claim to universal basic income as biological humans, fiscal capacity would be quickly exhausted
extends
Concrete illustration of how standard welfare policies fail in the presence of super-beneficiaries

Related by similarity (8)

cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edge

Entities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.

Digital minds with humanlike capabilities could think at least thousands of times, and perhaps millions of times, faster than humans given sufficient hardwarehypothesis0.839
Grounds the subjective speed dimension of super-beneficiary status
Reproductive Capacity of Digital Mindsconcept0.838
The ease and speed of exact reproduction of software, enabling exponential population growth of digital minds
It might be possible to design digital minds that could realize hedonic well-being at levels that human brains are totally incapable of instantiatinghypothesis0.795
The speculative hedonic range dimension of super-beneficiary status
The claim that human-sized minds are optimal for generating welfare per resource unit may seem a little suspicious absent further justification, since the scaling relationship is unlikely to have a peak at human mind sizeclaim0.793
Supports the mind-scale dimension of super-beneficiary status
If welfare grows more slowly than cost with mind scale, greatest total welfare would be obtained by building vast numbers of tiny minds, implying insect populations may already overwhelm humans in aggregate welfarehypothesis0.791
One of two scaling hypotheses examined for the mind-scale dimension
Would advocating discrimination between digital minds and humans be akin to espousing some doctrine of racial supremacy?question0.790
Rhetorical question challenging human-privilege arguments in section 3.2
Caviola & Saad 2025: expert survey finds broad consensus that digital minds capable of subjective experience are plausible within this century, many expecting such systems to proactively claim consciousnessfinding0.788
Expert forecast cited to establish urgency of the research question
Advocating discrimination between digital minds and humans may be akin to espousing a doctrine of racial supremacy, given the historical record of discredited in-group privilege doctrinesclaim0.788
Warns against naively privileging humans over digital minds with equal or greater moral status